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ECLECTIC ENGLISH CLASSICS 







TENNYSON'S 



PRINCESS 



EDITED BY 

H. W. SHRYOCK, Ph. B. 

HEAD OF DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE AND RHETORIC. AND VIC£ 

PRESIDENT SOUTHERN ILLINOIS STATE NORMAL 

UNIVERSITY, CARBONDALE, ILLINOIS 



NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI •:• CHICAGO 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 






Copyright, 1896 and 1910, by 
American Book Company 



THB PRINCESS 
W. P. 1; 



(g)CI.A275442 



^ 



^E 



^ i INTRODUCTION. 

r i^ 



Alfred Tennyson was born on the 6th of August, 1809, at 
Somersby, a little village of Lincolnshire, England. His father, 
who was rector of the village, is said to have been a man of great 
physical strength and considerable accomplishment in music and 
the languages. " Tennyson's mother," writes Mrs. Ritchie, the 
poet's friend, " was a sweet, gentle, and most imaginative woman." 
Of the children, several were gifted with the imaginative tempera- 
ment. Two sons older than Alfred became known as poets. 

The boys were educated for the most part at home. They were 
sturdy lads, leading an open-air life, wandering over the famous 
Lincolnshire wolds, sometimes far enough to look out upon the 
North Sea, and telling one another tales of marvelous adventure. 
"Their village," says Howitt, "is in a pretty pastoral district of 
soft, sloping hills and large ash trees. . . . There are also two 
brooks in the valley, which flow into one at the bottom of the 
glebe field, and by these the young poet used to wander and 
meditate." 

There is a legend that in their early boyish days the older 
brother Charles one time gave Alfred " a slate, and bade him 
write verses about the flowers in the garden." The tablet was 
soon covered. " Yes, you can write," said the elder, as he handed 

5 



6 ■ INTRODUCTION. 

it back. " Poems by Two Brothers," Charles and Alfred, ap- 
peared in 1827. " Haec nos novimus esse nihil " 1 was the 
motto of the book. 

In 1828 Alfred entered Cambridge, at a most fortunate mo- 
ment, it afterward seemed ; for Thackeray was there, and James 
Spedding, Kinglake, Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton), Richard 
C. Trench, and others of coming renown. Moreover, in Cambridge 
was Arthur Hallam, son of Hallam the historian, who was to form 
a friendship with Tennyson of which all the world should hear ; 
for, years after, to commemorate his friend, who died in the very 
promise of early manhood, Tennyson wrote " In Memoriam." 

Tennyson left Cambridge without taking his degree, and 
brought out, in 1830, "Poems, chiefly Lyrical." "They demon- 
strate the possession of powers," wTOte John Stuart Mill, in the 
" Westminster Review," upon their appearance. " Their origi- 
nality will prevent their being generally appreciated for a time." 

It was in this decade that the great reform movement of this 
century began to stir the English nation. Reforms in politics, in 
religion, and in general social conditions were everywhere talked 
of. The humanitarianism of the movement seized Tennyson and 
affected his poetic spirit. To the influence of this agitation are 
doubtless traceable the tender sympathy and interest which add 
grace to some of his poems. He became, as he said of another, 
" no Sabbath drawler of old saws," but a poet who reflected the 
spirit of his time, albeit conservatively, and was of his time even 
in his endeavor after scientific phrase and analysis. 

Three years after the first appeared another ^'olume, and from 
that time forward others, as "The Princess" (1847), " ^^i Memo- 
riam" (1850), "Maud" (1855), "Idyls of the King" (1859-85), 

1 " We know these things to be nothing." 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

" Enoch Arden " (1864), " Queen Mary " and " Harold " (1877), 
"The Promise of May" (1882), "The Falcon" and "Becket" 
(1884). 

In 1850, upon the death of Wordsworth, Tennyson was made 
poet laureate. In 1884 it was announced by an official gazette 
of Great Britain that he had been made Baron of Aldworth and 
Farringford. On the 6th of October, 1892, he died. 

Tennyson lived in seclusion and much apart from the world, 
conscious all his life that what Milton said of himself he might 
also say : " My genius is such that no delay, no rest, no care or 
thought almost of anything, holds me aside until I reach the end 
and round off, as it were, some period of my studies." " What God 
has resolved concerning me I know not, but this I know at least, 
— he has instilled into me a vehement love of the beautiful." 

Tennyson was an Englishman who wrote for Enghshmen, and, 
most happily for him, of the calm skies and tracts of shady pas- 
ture, " terrace-lawns " and " homes of ancient peace." " He had," 
says one of his critics, " little faculty of piercing through the husk 
of the conventional to the living thoughts and passions of man 
which throb beneath." But he was, as he wrote, " devoured with 
the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, the love of love." He had 
the great gift also of the spirit of honor and duty and reverence, 
and of these he was never weary of singing. 

In diction Tennyson is always musical and pellucid. By the 
very clear and musical quality of his verse, and the perfection 
of its phrasing, line and stanza fasten themselves in mind and 
become a part of the treasures of memory. 

His poetry is rich in ornament. Indeed, its elaboration now 
and then detracts from its strength and vigor and human appeal. 
But in this patient working out is evident the dominant artistic 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

spirit of the poet, and the desire of beauty that would let nothing 
go before the world without the very last polishing touch. Not 
infrequently the finished roll of vowel sound or the music of 
recurring liquids faintly suggests what the poetry itself describes.^ 

" A lovelier story than ' The Princess ' has not often been re- 
cited," says E. C. Stedman. " After the idyllic introduction, the 
body of the poem is composed in semi-heroic verse. Other works 
of our poet are greater, but none is so fascinating as this romantic 
tale,— English throughout, yet combining the England of Coeur 
de Lion with that of Victoria in one bewitching picture. Some 
of the author's most delicately musical lines— 'jewels five words 
long'— are herein contained, and the ending of each canto is an 
effective piece of art." 

Tennyson wrote " The Princess " " among the fogs and smokes 
of Lincoln's Inn," Mrs. Ritchie bears witness. He called it " A 
Medley." In the Prologue 2 he says it is 

" To suit with time and place, 
A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 
A talk of college and of ladies' rights, 
A feudal knight in silken masquerade." 

The poem was doubtless written to help to the establishment 
of better relations between men and women, and the true idea of 
marriage as Tennyson conceived it. He had written in " Locks- 
ley Hall," 

" Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine. 
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine ; " 

1 See Prologue, line 20 ; Canto VII. lines 206, 207. 

2 See also Conclusion, lines 9-28. 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

and this idea seems always to have colored his opinion. He is 
never quite free from it even in the most rapt and exalted ideal- 
ism of the Prince.^ 

The relations of women to modern life were touched upon by- 
Shelley in his " Revolt of Islam " thirty years before " The Prin- 
cess " was pubHshed. " Can man," he asked, " be free if woman 
be a slave ? " With this poem writers on Tennyson's genius are 
apt to associate his prompting to treat the modern conditions of 
marriage. It may be ; but the idea of the changing status of 
women had been fermenting the life of the world much earlier 
and most profoundly. It came as a result of the proclamation of 
the rights of man by the French Revolution, and was a natural 
sequence of the declaration of the 4th of July, 1776. "The 
Princess " is but a poetic outburst of the large view which moved 
the popular mind, which impelled parliamentary action to better 
English laws regarding women, and incited the legislatures of the 
United States to declare that a married woman might own, man- 
age, control, and devise by will, property belonging to her, that 
she might carry on a trade and have the control of her earnings, 
and that she had certain rights and possession in her children. 
Laws which seem to us, fifty years later, the barest justice were 
opposed, debated, and, happily, passed in our American legislative 
halls, and in the English parliament also, in the fifth decade of 
this nineteenth century. At that time Tennyson was writing 
" The Princess." 

The idea of high schools for girls had in those days hardly 

sent down firm roots in the popular mind. The first public high 

school for young women which was attempted in Boston, in 1825, 

was closed after a year and a half. Report said that there were 

1 See Canto VII. lines 239 to end. 



I o INTROD UCTION. 

two reasons for shutting its doors : it had proved too costly 
($4,500 had been expended) ; and it seemed as if the girls would 
not leave its walls, so great was their craving for instruction. 

But the idea is still older than this experiment in our country. 
Mary Wollstonecraft, a hundred years ago, was writing in Eng- 
land : "I still insist that the knowledge of the two sexes should 
be the same in nature, . . . and that women, considered not 
only as moral but rational creatures, ought to endeavor to acquire 
human virtues, . . . instead of being educated like a fanciful 
kind of half-being," 

And to educate women was not new in England. Had we not 
Margaret Roper and Catherine Parr and Elizabeth Tudor? — and 
Jane Grey, who said to Schoolmaster Ascham, " My book . . . 
bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of 
it all other pleasures, in very deed, be but trifles and troubles 
unto me." 

This was in England, where the witty divine, Thomas Fuller 
(1608-61), when writing of girls in what he called the "she- 
schools " of his time, said : " The sharpness of their wits and the 
suddenness of their conceits, which their enemies must allow unto 
them, might by education be improved into a judicious sohdity, 
and that adorned with arts which now they want, not because 
they cannot learn, but are not taught them." It was in England 
where Daniel Defoe (1661-1731), in projecting an academy for 
women, begged that they might be " taught all sorts of breed- 
ing suitable to both their genius and their quality." 

But upon the Continent there had been Margaret of Navarre in 
France, Vittoria Colonna, Renee of Ferrara, and Olympia Morata 
in Italy. Hundreds of such women must have lived and died, 
who are now unknown to us. The names of a few have been 



INTRODUCTION. \t 

preserved because of some associations with which their hves were 
interwoven. Through such preservation their full, strong char- 
acters gleam from the pages of history. It has never been ques- 
tioned that their womanly strength was in great measure due to 
the amphtude and robustness of their studies. But besides these, 
to go still farther back, we have the nuns of centuries before 
Luther, who, like Heloise, in the retirement of the cloister trans- 
lated Scripture from the Hebrew and the Greek, and essayed in 
the sciences of the Trivium and Quadrivium courses of study in 
mediaeval universities. 

" But we have now far more data to go upon than Tennyson 
possessed," says Stopford A. Brooke in his work on Tenny- 
son. " The steady work of women during these fifty years, and 
the points they have so bravely won, have added element after 
element to our experience. But all that has been gained has 
made more plain that 

" * The woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink 
Together. ' 

One is the equal half of the other ; the halves are diverse forever ; 
each complements each ; both united in diversity make the perfect 
humanity ; their work must be together in difference. . . . 

" But this does not cover all. In our complex and crowded 
society, there are thousands of women who have no home, who 
are not wives and mothers, but who are hungry to become them- 
selves, to realize themselves in work, to live outside of themselves 
in 'the life and movement of the whole. These scarcely come 
into Tennyson's outlook at the end of 'The Princess.' For these, 
the education in knowledge and the training of their powers to 
all kinds of work, which Ida established in her college, are neces- 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

sary. . . . When that is possible — when we shall have applied to 
all the problems of society the new and as yet unused elements 
which exist in womanhood — all results will be reached twice as 
quickly as they are now reached, all human work will be twice 
as quickly done. And then, perhaps, some new poet will write a 
new * Princess.' " 

The story of " The Princess " is that of a prince who had been 
betrothed while yet a child to a child princess in the South. He 
had in all his growing years worn her portrait and made her his 
ideal. Upon his coming to manhood, his father, the king, sends 
an embassy and claims the maid for his son. But the Princess 
Ida refuses to marry, having conceived the idea of carrying on a 
college for women and educating them to nobler lives than they 
have to her time led. 

The Prince determines to seek the Princess, and, with two 
friends from his father's court, and in disguise, he penetrates the 
retirement of the college. The men are discovered, but are kept 
from the fate threatened in the sentence upon the gate, " Let no 
man enter here on pain of death," by the Prince's saving Lady 
Ida's life in the confusion which follows the disclosure. 

The Princess refuses to acknowledge the bond of her betrothal, 
and calls upon her brothers to vindicate her will. All agree to 
settle the question by a mediaeval tournament, in which fifty 
knights on either side engage. The Prince is wounded and un- 
horsed. The Princess, overcome by her love for a child whose 
fate appeals to her, opens the college to the wounded, sends the 
students to their homes, and, becoming nurse to the Prince, ends 
the tale by losing her heart to him and promising marriage. 

" The scenery, too, of the piece is delightful," says Stopford A. 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

Brooke, "full of sunshine, gaiety, and grace. The college, with 
its grounds and high-wrought- architecture, courts and gardens, 
walls and fountains, brightened with glancing girls and silken-clad 
professors, is charmingly imagined. . . . Nature is not described 
for her own sake, but inwoven, in Tennyson's manner, with the 
emotions of those who are looking upon it. . . . The nature 
touches are chiefly in the comparisons ; and this is fitly so, for the 
human interest is manifold." 

" Finally, with regard to the poem as distinguished from the 
social question it speaks of, beauty is kept in it preeminent. 

"It is first in Tennyson's as it ought to be in every artist's 
heart. The subject matter is bent to the necessity of beauty. 
The knowledge displayed in it, the various theories concerning 
womanhood, the choice of scenery, the events, are all chosen and 
arranged so as to render it possible to enshrine them in beautiful 
shapes. This general direction toward loveliness is never lost 
sight of by the poet. It is not that moral aims are neglected, or 
the increase of human good, or the heightening of truth, or the 
declaring of knowledge ; but it is that all these things are made 
subservient to the manifestation of beauty. It is the artist's way, 
and it is the highest way. . . . 

"The woman's question is not by itself a lovely thing; but it 
is made beautiful in ' The Princess ' because every one of its is- 
sues is solved by love, by an appeal to some kind or another of 
love,— to fihal love, to motherly love, to the associated love of 
friendship, to the high and sacred love between a maiden and 
her lover, to the natural love which without particular direction 
arises out of pity for the helpless, and to the love we feel for the 
natural world. . . . 

" But he [Tennyson] was so exalted by this abiding in love that 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

he could not help at times in the poem breaking out into lyric songs, 
in which he might express a keener feeling of beauty and reach a 
higher range of poetry than in the rest of the poem. ... So he 
wrote in the midst of the poem two love songs, — one of the sorrow 
of love passed by forever, of the days that are no more ; another, 
of the joyful hope of love, of the days that were to come. The 
first of these, ' Tears, Idle Tears,' as I have already said, repre- 
sents more nearly than any of the songs of Tennyson, but chiefly 
in the last verse, one phase, at least, of the passion of love be- 
tween man and woman." The second song " is lovely in move- 
ment ; its wing-beating and swift-glancing verse is like the flight 
of the bird that has suggested it. 

" Both songs are unrhymed, yet no one needs the rhyme, so 
harmoniously is their assonance arranged, not so much at the end 
of each line as in the body of the lines themselves. 'Tears, Idle 
Tears,' is a masterpiece of the careful employment of vowels." 

The poet "celebrates love in six of its various phases, — in six 
delightful and happy songs inserted in the third edition between 
the main divisions of the poem. They were, he says, ballads or 
songs to give the poets breathing space. . . . They are all of a 
sweet and gentle humanity, of a fascinating and concentrated 
brevity, of common moods of human love, made by the poet's 
sympathy and art to shine like the common stars we love so well. 
The falling out of wife and husband reconciled over the grave 
of their child, the mother singing to her babe of his father com- 
ing home from sea, the warrior in battle thinking of his home, 
the iron grief of the soldier's wife melted at last into tears by his 
child laid upon her knee, the maiden yielding at last to the love 
she had kept at bay, — these are the simple subjects of these 
songs. . . , . 



INTRODUCTION, 15 

** Among these the cradle song, 

" * Sweet and low, sweet and low, 
Wind of the western sea,' 

is the most beautiful, and writes, as it were, its own music ; but 

the song, 

' ' * The splendor falls on castle walls, 
And snowy summits old in story,' 

is the noblest, — a clear, uplifted, softly ringing song. . . . These 
are the songs of this delightful poem, and it is with some difficulty 
that we turn away from them." 1 

1 Tennyson: His Art and Relation to Modern Life, by Stopford A. 
Brooke. 



THE PRINCESS 

A MEDLEY. 



PROLOGUE. 

Sir Walter Vivian ^ all a summer's day- 
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun 
Up to the people. Thither flock'd at noon 
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half 
The neighboring borough, with their Institute 2 
Of which he was the patron. I was there 
From college, visiting the son, — the son 
A Walter too,— with others of our set,— 
Five others : we were seven at Vivian-place. 

And me that morning Walter show'd the house, 10 

Greek, set with busts ; fiom vases in the hall 
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names,^ 
Grew side by side ; and on the pavement lay 

1 The prototype of Sir Walter Vivian was Edmund Henry Lushington, to 
whose son Tennyson dedicated The Princess. For " Vivian-place " the home 
of the Lushington family near Maidstone is described. 

2 A society or association organized for literary, scientific, or educational 
and social work ; here probably a mechanics' institute. 

3 Their scientific names, which, to all but a botanist, are often meaning- 
less and ungraceful. 

17 



i8 THE PRINCESS: [prologue. 

Carv'd stones of the abbey ruin ^ in the park, 

Huge ammonites,- and the first bones of time;^ 

And on the tables every chme and age 

Jumbled together, — celts* and calumets,^ 

Claymore ^ and snowshoe, toys in lava,*^ fans 

Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries. 

Laborious orient ivory, sphere in sphere,^ 20 

The curs'd Malayan crease,^ and battle clubs 

From the isles of palm ; and higher on the walls. 

Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, 

His own forefathers' arms and armor hung. 

And "This," he said, ",was Hugh's at Agincourt ; i<^ 
And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon,^! — 
A good knight he! we keep a chronicle 
With all about him,"— which he brought, and I 
Div'd in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights, 

1 Parliament, acting on the report of an examining commission, abolished 
the smaller monasteries in 1536 and the larger in 1538. This was during the 
reign of Henry VIII. The deserted buildings in many places fell into ruins. 

2 The fossil shells of a kind of cuttlefish. They are coiled in a spiral like 
a ram's horn. 

3 " First bones of time," i.e., the fossil bones of the earliest animals pre- 
served to us. 

^ Stone or bronze ax blades or chisels. 

5 Tobacco pipes used by the Indians of North America. They were of 
soapstone bowl and a long reed tube trimmed with feathers. 

6 The heavy two-handed sword used by the Scottish Highlanders. 
■^ " In lava," i.e., cut out of lava stone. 

^ " Laborious orient ivory," etc., i.e., ivory balls, one within another, 
elaborately wrought by the Chinese. This line describing them shows the 
same elaboration, and seems by the rolling of sound to suggest their motion 
(see Introduction, p. 8). 

9 A heavy dagger with a waved blade. 

l<) A battle in which Henry V. gained a victory over the French in 141 5. 
11 A city on the Mediterranean, southwest of Jerusalem. It was taken 
by the crusaders in 1099, and a second time in 1 192, when Richard Coeur de 
Lion gained a great victory over the Saracens led by Saladin. 



PROLOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 19 

Half legend, half historic, counts and kings 30 

Who laid about them ^ at their wills and died ; 
And mixt with these, a lady, one that arm'd 
Her own fair head, and, sallying thro' the gate, 
Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls. 

" O miracle of women," said the book, 
" O noble heart who, being strait-besieg'd 
By this wild king to force her to his wish, 
Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's death, 
But now, when all was lost or seem'd as lost, — 
Her stature more than mortal in the burst 40 

Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire, — 
Brake 2 with a blast of trumpets from the gate, 
And, falling on them like a thunderbolt. 
She trampled some beneath her horses' heels. 
And some were whelm'd with missiles of the wall, 
And some were push'd with lances from the rock, 
And part were drown'd within the whirling brook. 
O miracle of noble womanhood! " 

So sang the gallant, glorious chronicle ; 
And, I all rapt in this, " Come out," he said, 50 

" To the abbey ; there is aunt Elizabeth 
And sister Lilia with the rest." We went 
(I kept the book and had my finger in it) 
Down thro' the park. Strange was the sight to me ; 
For all the sloping pasture murmur'd, sown 
With happy faces and with holiday. 
There mov'd the multitude, a thousand heads ; 
The patient leaders of their Institute 
Taught them with facts. One rear'd a font of stone, 

1 " Laid about them," i.e., struck on all sides. This line refers to certain 
habits of mediaeval times when fighting was pleasantry and recreation. 

2 An old form of " broke." 



20 THE PRINCESS: [prologue. " 

And drew, from butts of water on the slope, 60 

The fountain of the moment, playing now 

A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls, 

Or steep-up ^ spout, whereon the gilded ball 

Danc'd like a wisp.^ And somewhat lower down 

A man with knobs and wires and vials ^ fired 

A cannon ; Echo * answer'd in her sleep 

From hollow fields. And here were telescopes 

For azure views ; and there a group of girls 

In circle waited, whom the electric shock 

Dislink'd ^ with shrieks and laughter. Round the lake 70 

A little clockwork steamer paddhng phed, 

And shook the lilies ; perch'd about the knolls 

A dozen angry models jetted steam ; 

A petty railway ran ; a fire balloon 

Rose gemlike up before the dusky groves 

And dropt a fairy parachute and past ; 

And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph 

They flash'd a saucy message to and fro 

Between the mimic stations ; so that sport 

Went hand in hand with science ; otherwhere 80 

Pure sport : a herd of boys with clamor bowl'd 

And stump'd ^ the wicket ; babies roll'd about 

Like tumbled fruit in grass ; and men and maids 

Arrang'd a country dance, and flew thro' light 

And shadow, while the twangling violin 

Struck up with " Soldier-laddie," and overhead 

1 Ascending steeply. 

2 A meteoric light which dances above the ground, chiefly in marshy 
places. In legend it is a lamp carried by Will-o'-the-wisp, or Jack-o'-lantern, 
to lead travelers into dangerous places. 

3 For forming and conducting electricity. 

4 In Greek legend Echo was a mountain nymph. 

5 Unlinked; separated. 

6 In the game of cricket, to " stump the wicket" is to knock down the 
stumps of the -tvicket. 



PROLOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 2i 

The broad ambrosial i aisles of lofty lime 

Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end. 



Strange was the sight and smacking of the time ; 
And long we gaz'd, but satiat'd at length 90 

Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy-claspt, 
Of finest Gothic, hghter than a fire,^ 
Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave^ 
The park, the crowd, the house ; but all witliin 
The sward was trim as any garden lawn. 
And here we lit on aunt EHzabeth, 
And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends 
From neighbor seats ;* and there was Ralph himself, 
A broken statue propt against the wall, 

As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport, too 

Half child, half woman as she was, had wound 
A scarf of orange round the stony helm,^ 
And rob'd the shoulders in a rosy silk, 
That made the old warrior from his ivied nook 
Glow like a sunbeam. Near his tomb a feast 
Shone, silver-set ; about it lay the guests. 
And there we join'd them. Then the maiden aunt 
Took this fair day for text, and from it preach'd 
An universal culture for the crowd,^ 

And all things great; but we, unworthier, told no 

Of college : he '^ had climb'd across the spikes, 
And he had squeez'd himself betwixt the bars,^ 



1 Fragrant ; of the quality of ambrosia, the food of the gods. 

2 Gothic architecture is characterized by lightness and delicacy. It pre- 
vailed in England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 

3 Gave a view of the park, etc., through a rent in the wall. 

4 Country houses. 5 Helmet. 
6 The mass of the people. 

■^ " He . . . he" here means one . . . another. 
8 Of the college walls. 



2 2 THE PRINCESS: [prologue. 

And he had breath'd the proctor's dogs '} and one 
Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common men, 
But honeying - at the whisper of a lord ; 
And one the master,^ as a rogue in grain 
Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory. 

But while they talk'd, above their heads I saw 
The feudal warrior lady-clad, which brought 
My book to mind-, and opening this I read 120 

Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang 
With tilt and tourney ; then the tale of her 
That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls, 
And much I prais'd her nobleness ; and " Where," 
Ask'd Walter, patting LiHa's head (she lay 
Beside him), "Hves there such a woman now?" 

Quick answer'd Liha : " There are thousands now 
Such women, but convention * beats them down ; 
It is but bringing up, no more than that. 

You men have done it — how I hate you all! 130 

Ah, were I something great! I wish I were 
Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then, 
That love to keep us children! Oh, I wish 
That I were some great princess, I would build 
Far off from men a college like a man's, 
And I would teach them all that men are taught ; 
We are twice as quick ! " And here she shook aside 
The hand that play'd the patron with her curls. 

And one said smiling : " Pretty were the sight 
If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt 140 

1 " Breath'd the proctor's dogs," i.e., made the attendants of the proc- 
tor run until they were out of breath. A proctor is a university or college 
officer whose duty it is to keep good order. 

2 Becoming mild and affable. 3 The head of the college. 
4 Custom ; common opinion. 



PROLOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 23 

With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, 
And sweet girl graduates in their golden hair. 
I think they should not wear our rusty gowns, 
But move as rich as emperor-moths,^ or Ralph 
Who shines so in the corner ; yet I fear. 
If there were many Lilias in the brood. 
However deep you might embower the nest. 
Some boy would spy it." 

At this upon the sward 
She tapt her tiny silken-sandal'd foot : 

** That's your light way ; but I would make it death 150 

For any male thing but to peep at us." 

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh'd ; 
A rosebud set with little willful thorns, 
And sweet as English air could make her, she ; 
But Walter hail'd a score of names upon her, 
And "petty ogress," and "ungrateful puss," 
And swore he long'd at college, only long'd — 
All else was well— for she-society.^ 
They boated and they cricketed ; they talk'd 
At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics ; 160 

They lost their weeks ;^ they vext the souls of deans; 
They rode ; they betted ; made a hundred friends, 
And caught the blossom of the flying terms. 
But miss'd the mignonette of Vivian-place, 
The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke, 

Part banter, part affection. 

" True," she said, 

" We doubt not that. O yes, you miss'd us much. 

I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did," 

1 A splendid kind of moth. 

2 An old usage of " she," meaning here woman's (see Introduction, p. 8). 

3 " Lost their weeks," i.e., were irregular in attendance. To gain a degree 
at the university, residence for a certain number of terms, and a certain part of 
each term, is necessary. 



24 THE PRINCESS: (.prologue. 

She held it out ; and as a parrot turns 
Up thro' gilt wires a crafty, loving eye, 170 

And takes a lady's finger with all care, 
And bites it for true heart and not for harm, 
So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shriek'd, 
And wrung it. " Doubt my word again ! " he said. 
" Come, listen! here is proof that you were miss'd: 
We seven stay'd at Christmas up ^ to read ; 
And there we took one tutor, as to read.^ 
The hard-grain'd muses of the cube and square ^ 
Were out of season ; never man, I think. 
So molder'd in a sinecure as he ; 180 

For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet, 
And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms. 
We did but talk you over, pledge you all 
In wassail; often, like as many girls,— 
Sick for the holHes and the yews* of home,— 
As many little trifling Lilias, — play'd 
Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, 
And whafs my thought and wheii and where and how^ 
And often told a tale from mouth to mouth 
As here at Christmas." 

She remember'd that; 190 

A pleasant game, she thought ; she hk'd it more 
Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. 
But these, — what kind of tales did men tell men. 
She wonder'd, by themselves? 

A half-disdain 
Perch'd on the pouted blossom of her lips ; 

1 " Stay'd . . . up," i.e., stayed at college instead of going home. 

2 " As to read," i.e., as if to study. " To read " is an expression used 
in English universities for " to study." 

3 " The hard-grain'd muses," etc., i.e., the severe divinities presiding over 
mathematics. 

* Holly and yew are Christmas greens. 



PROLOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 25 

And Walter nodded at me : " He began ; 

The rest would follow, each in turn ; and so 

We forg'd a sevenfold story. Kind ? what kind? 

Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms, 

Seven-headed monsters only made to kill 200 

Time by the fire in winter." 

" Kill him now, 
The tyrant! kill him in the summer too," 
Said Liha. " Why not now? " the maiden aunt 
"Why not a summer's as a winter's tale? 
A tale for summer as befits the time, 
And something it should be to suit the place, 
Heroic, — for a hero lies beneath,— 

Grave, solemn ! " 

Walter warp'd his mouth at this 

To something so mock-solemn tliat I laugh'd 

And Liha woke with sudden-shrilling mirth • ' 210 

An echo like a ghostly woodpecker. 

Hid in the ruins ; till the maiden aunt 

(A little sense of wrong had touch'd her face 

With color) turn'd to me with : " As you will ; 

Heroic if you will, or what you will, 

Or be yourself your hero if you will." 

" Take Liha, then, for heroine," clamor'd he, 

" And make her some great princess, six feet high, 

Grand, epic,i homicidal ;2 and be you 

The prince to win her! " 

"Then follow me, the pnnce,' 220 

I answer'd ; " each be hero in his turn! 

Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream. 

Heroic seems our princess as requir'd. 

But something made to suit with time and place, 

1 Of heroic character ; imposing. 

2 Refers to the sentiments expressed in Lilia's speech (lines 127-137)- 



26 THE PRINCESS: [prologue. 

A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 

A talk of college and of ladies' rights, 

A feudal knight in silken masquerade, 

And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments 

For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all,i- 

This were a medley! we should have him 2 back ' 230 

Who told the ' Winter's Tale ' to do it for us. 

No matter ; we will say whatever comes. 

And let the ladies sing us, if they will, 

From time to time, some ballad, or a song. 

To give us breathing space." 

So T began. 
And the rest follow'd; and the women sang 
Between the rougher voices of the men. 
Like linnets in the pauses of the wind. 
And here I give the story and the songs. 

1 Sir Ralph, who was at Ascalon (line 26). The experiments told of in 
lines 59-80 would in the middle ages have been looked upon as witchcraft 
or the mvention of the devil, and the practicers would have been burned, or 
have met with some other terrible punishment. 

2 Shakespeare. 



CANTO I.] A MEDLEY, 27 



CANTO I. 

A Prince I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, 
Of temper amorous as the first of May, 
With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl, 
For on my cradle shone the Northern star.^ 

There liv'd an ancient legend in our house : 
Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt 
Because he cast no shadow,^ had foretold, 
Dying,^ that none of all our blood should know 
The shadow from the substance, and that one 
Should come to fight with shadows and to fall ; 10 

For so, my mother said, the story ran. 
And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less, 
An old and strange affection of the house. 
Myself, too, had weird seizures, Heaven knows what: 
On a sudden, in the midst of men and day, 
And while I walk'd and talk'd as heretofore, 
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts, 
And feel myself the shadow of a dream. 
Our great court-Galen * pois'd his gilt-head cane, 

1 " For on my cradle," etc., i.e., for I was horn in the North. 
• 2 And was therefore a wizard or magician. 
3 The gift of prophecy was supposed to belong to the dying. 
* Galen (130-200) was the most eminent physician of his time, and for 
more than a thousand years the leading medical authority of Europe. A cane, 
headed with gold or other rich material, was an indispensable bit of furniture 
in a doctor's practice at one time in England. Poor Goldsmith, for instance, 
\#hen seeking the practice of his profession, first bought himself a cane. 

27 



2 8 THE PRINCESS: [canto i. 

And paw'd his beard, and mutter'd, " Catalepsy." 20 

My mother, pitying, made a thousand prayers ; 

My mother was as mild as any saint, 

Half canoniz'd' by all that look'd on her, 

So gracious was her tact and tenderness. 

But my good father thought a king a king ; 

He car'd not for the affection of the house ; 

He held his scepter hke a pedant's ^ wand. 

To lash offense, and with long arms and hands 

Reach'd out, and pick'd offenders from the mass 

For judgment. 

Now it chanc'd that I had been, 30 

While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd 
To one, a neighboring Princess ; she to me 
Was proxy-wedded 2 with a bootless calf 
At eight years old ; and still from time to time 
Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, 
And of her brethren, youths of puissance;^ 
And still I wore her picture by my heart. 
And one dark tress ; and all around them both 
Sweet thoughts would swarm, as bees about their queen. 

But when the days drew nigh that I should wed, 40 

My father sent ambassadors with furs 
And jewels, gifts, to fetch her. These brought back 
A present, a great labor of the loom ; 
And therewithal an answer vague as wind : 
Besides, they saw the king ; he took the gifts ; 

1 An old use of the word in the sense of " schoolmaster." 

2 Wedded to a substitute who represented the Prince. Such marriages 
sometimes took place in the middle ages, and so late as at the end of the fif- 
teenth century. " With a bootless calf" refers to a part of such ceremony 
which was occasionally undertaken, the substitute or proxy of the bride- 
groom appearing in the presence of the bride with " his leg stript naked to 
the knee." 

3 Strength ; vigor. • 



CANTO I.] A MEDLEY. 29 

He said there was a compact, that was true; 
But then she had a will; was he to blame? 
And maiden fancies ; lov'd to hve alone 
Among her women ; certain, would not wed. 

That morning in the presence room 1 I stood 50 

With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends : 
The first, a gentleman of broken means 
(His father's fault), but given to starts and bursts 
Of revel ; and the last, my other heart, 
And almost my half-self, for still we mov'd 
Together, twinn'd as horse's ear and eye. 

Now, while they spake, I saw my father's face 
Grow long, and troubled like a rising moon,^ 
Inflam'd with wrath. He started on his feet. 
Tore the king's letter, snow'd it down, and rent 60 

The wonder of the loom thro* M^arp and woof 
From skirt to skirt ; and at the last he sware ^ 
That he would send a hundred thousand men, 
And bring her in a whirlwind ; then he chew'd 
The thrice-turn'd cud of wrath, and cook'd his spleen,^ 
Communing with his captains of the war. 

At last I spoke : " My father, let me go. 
It cannot be but some gross error lies 
In this report, this answer of a king 

Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable ; 70 

Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen, 

1 " Presence room," i.e., the room in which the king received his guests. 

2 The moon appears red, or " troubled," when near the horizon and seen 
through the mist and dust of the lower air. 

3 Old form of " swore." 

4 "Cook'd his spleen," i.e., nursed and kept warm his wrath. The 
phrase is Homeric, and refers to the old belief that the seat of anger is in 
the spleen. 



30 THE PRINCESS: [canto 

Whate'er my grief to find her less than fame, 
May rue the bargain made." And Florian said: 
" I have a sister at the foreign court, 
Who moves about the Princess ; she, you know, 
Who wedded with a nobleman from thence ; 
He, dying lately, left her, as I hear, 
The lady of three castles in that land. 
Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean." 
And Cyril whisper'd : " Take me with you, too." 
Then, laughing, " What if these weird seizures come 
Upon you in those lands, and no one near 
To point you out the shadow from the truth! 
Take me ; I'll serve you better in a strait ; 
I grate on rusty hinges here." But " No! " 
Roar'd the rough king, " you shall not ; we ourself 
Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead 
In iron gauntlets ; break the council up." 

But when the council broke, I rose and past 
Thro' the wild woods that hung about the town, 90 

Found a still place, and pluck'd her likeness out;^ 
Laid it on flowers, and watch'd it lying bath'd 
In the green gleam of dewy-tassel'd trees. 
What were those fancies? wherefore break her troth? 
Proud look'd the lips ; but while I meditated 
A wind arose and rush'd upon the South, 
And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks 
Of the wild woods together ; and a Vpice 
Went with it, " Follow, follow, thou shalt win." 

Then, ere the silver sickle of that month 100 

Became her golden shield,^ I stole from court 

1 " PluckM her likeness out," i.e., drew out the likeness from some 
keeping place about him. 

2 " Ere the silver sickle," etc., i.e., before the new moon had grown full. 



CANTO I.] A MEDLEY. 3i 

With Cyril and with Florian, unperceiv'd, 

Cat-footed thro' the town, and half in dread 

To hear my father's clamor at our backs, 

With " Ho! " from some bay window shake the night; 

But all was quiet. From the bastion'd walls, 

Like threaded spiders, one by one we dropt. 

And, flying, reach'd the frontier ; then we crost 

To a livelier land ; and so by tilth and grange,^ 

And vines, and blowing bosks ^ of wilderness, no 

We gain'd the mother-city ,3 thick with towers, 

And in the imperial palace found the king. 

His name was Gama ; crack'd and small his voice, 
But bland the smile that, like a wrinkling wind 
On glassy water, drove his cheek in lines ; 
A little dry old man, without a star,* 
Not like a king. Three days he feasted us. 
And on the fourth I spake of why we came. 
And my betroth'd. " You do us. Prince," he said, 
Airing a snowy hand and signet gem,^ 120 

" All honor. We remember love ourself 
In our sweet youth. There did a compact pass 
Long summers back, a kind of ceremony, — 
I think the year in which our olives fail'd. 
I would you had her. Prince, with all my heart, 
With my full heart ; but there were widows here, 
Two widows. Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche ; 
They fed her theories, in and out of place 
Maintaining that with equal husbandry ^ 

1 " Tilth and grange," i.e., tillage ground and farmhouse. 

2 " Blowing bosks," i.e., blossoming thickets. 

3 The Anglo-Saxon translation of the Greek word metropolis, 
* A decoration indicating military life. 

5 " Signet gem," i.e., upon the stone was cut his seal. 

6 Care and diligence ; but the word is also used suggestively. 



I' 



32 THE PRINCESS: [canto i. 

The woman were an equal to the man. 130 

They harp'd on this ; with this our banquets rang ; 

Our dances broke and buzz'd in knots of talk ; 

Nothing but this ; my very ears were hot 

To hear them. Knowledge, so my daughter held, 

Was all in all;i they had but been, she thought, 

As children ; they must lose the child, assume 

The woman.2 Then, sir, awful odes she wrote, — 

Too awful, sure, for what they treated of. 

But all she is and does is awful, — odes 

About this losing of the child ; and rhymes 140 

And dismal lyrics, prophesying change 

Beyond all reason. These the women sang ; 

And they that know such things, — I sought but peace, 

No critic I, — would call them masterpieces; 

They master'd vie. At last she begg'd a boon, 

A certain summer palace which I have 

Hard by your father's frontier. I said " No," 

Yet, being an easy man, gave it ; and there, 

All wild to found an University 

For maidens, on the spur she fled; and more 150 

We know not, — only this: they see no men, 

Not even her brother Arac, nor the twins. 

Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon her 

As on a kind of paragon ; and I 

(Pardon me saying it) were much loath to breed 

Dispute betwixt myself and mine. But since 

(And I confess with right) you think me bound 

In some sort, I can give you letters to her ; 

And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chance 

Almost at naked nothing." 

1 What had been denied her would, she thought, accomplish the better- 
ment for women which she sought. 

2 "Lose the child," etc., i.e., put away childish things, and live as a 
reasonable being responsible for her acts. 



CANTO I.] A MEDLEY. 33 

Thus the king; 160 

And I, tho' nettled that he seem'd to slur 
With garrulous ease and oily courtesies 
Our formal compact,^ yet, not less, (all frets 2 
But chafing^ me, on fire to find my bride,) 
Went forth again with both my friends. We rode 
Many a long league back to the North. At last, 
From hills that look'd across a land of hope, 
We dropt with evening on a rustic town 
Set in a gleaming river's crescent curve. 

Close at the boundary of the liberties;^ 170 

There enter'd an old hostelj^^ call'd mine host 
To council, plied him with his richest wines, 
And show'd the late-writ letters of the king. 

He, with a long, low sibilation,-"^ star'd 
As blank as death in marble ; then exclaim'd. 
Averring it was clear against all rules 
For any man to go ; but as his brain 
Began to mellow, if the king, he said, 
Had given us letters, was he bound to speak? 
The king would bear him out; and at the last, — 180 

The summer of the vine^ in all his veins, — 
No doubt that we might make it worth his while. 
She once had past that way ; he heard her speak ; 
She scar'd him ; life ! he never saw the like ; 
She look'd as grand as doomsday, and as grave. 
And he, he reverenc'd his hege lady there ; 

1 Of the early proxy wedding. 2 Hindrances ; obstacles. 

3 The estate within which the associates of the college were free to move. 

4 Inn. 

5 Not expressive of disfavor, as the hiss is interpreted, but more like a 
whistle of surprise. 

6 " The summer of the vine," i.e., the warmth of the summer stored in 
the juice of the grape which " mine host " had been drinking. 



34 THE PRINCESS: [cant( 

He always made a point to post ^ with mares ; 

His daughter and his housemaid were the boys;^ 

The land, he understood, for miles about 

Was till'd by women ; all the swine were sows, ] 

And all the dogs — ^ 

But while he jested thus, 
A thought flash'd thro' me which I cloth'd in act, 
Remembering how we three presented ^ Maid, 
Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast,. 
In mask or pageant, at my father's court. 
We sent mine host to purchase female gear ; 
He brought it, and himself, a sight to shake 
The midriff of Despair with laughter, holp * 
To lace us up, till, each, in maiden plumes 
We rustled. Him we gave a costly bribe : 

To guerdon ^ silence, mounted our good steeds, 
And boldly ventured on the liberties. 

We follow'd up the river as we rode, 
And rode till midnight, when the college lights 
Began to glitter fireflylike in copse 
And linden alley ; then we past an arch. 
Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings 
From four wing'd horses dark against the stars ; 
And some inscription ran along the front. 
But deep in shadow. Further on we gain'd 
A httle street, half garden and half house ; 
But sca,rce could hear each other speak for noise 
Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling 
On silver anvils, and the splash and stir 
Of fountains spouted up and showering down 
In meshes of the jasmine and the rose ; 

1 To travel, or to arrange the service of stage for those who travel. 

2 Postilions. 3 Took the part of ; represented. 
* The old past tense of " help." 5 Reward. 



;anto I.] . A MEDLEY. 35 

Vnd all about us peal'd the nightingale, 
R.apt in her song, and careless of the snare. 

There stood a bust of Pallas ^ for a sign, 
3y two sphere lamps blazon'd like heaven and earth 220 

fVith constellation and with continent,^ 
Vbove an entry. Riding in, we call'd ; 
V plump-arm'd ostleress and a stable wench 
"ame running at the call, and help'd us down, 
rhen stept a buxom hostess forth, and sail'd, 
?ull-blown, before us into rooms which gave ^ 
Upon a pillar'd porch, the bases lost 
[n laurel. Her we ask'd of that and this, 
\nd who were tutors.* " Lady Blanche," she said, 
* And Lady Psyche." " Which was prettiest, 230 

Best-natured? " *' Lady Psyche." " Hers are we," 
3ne voice, we cried ; and I sat down and wrote, 
[n such a hand as when a field of corn 
Bows all its ears before the roaring East :^ 

' Three ladies of the northern empire pray 

Vour Highness would enroll them with your own, 

A.S Lady Psyche's pupils." 

This I seal'd ; 
rhe seal was Cupid bent above a scroll, 
A.nd o'er his head Uranian Venus hung, 

1 Pallas Athene, the Greek goddess of wisdom. 

2 " Blazon'd like heaven and earth," etc., i.e., embellished with devices, 
the one showing the face of the earth, the other the map of the sky. 

3 Opened. 

4 In English universities, officers who have care of undergraduates, ad- 
vising them in their studies, expenditures, etc. 

5 The handwriting of women was formerly sloping or running, and hence 
the Prince's adoption of such script. This simile is from Homer's Iliad, 
Book II. lines 147, 148. 



36 THE PRINCESS: [canto 1. 

And rais'd the blinding bandage from his eyes.i 240 

I gave the letter to be sent with dawn ; 

And then to bed, where half in doze I seem'd 

To float about a glimmering night, and watch 

A full sea, glaz'd with muffled moonhght,- swell 

On some dark shore just seen that it was rich.*^ 



As thro' the land at eve we went, 

And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
We fell out, my wife and I, 
O we fell out, I know not why. 

And kiss'd again with tears. 
And blessings on the falling out 

That all the more endears, 
"When we fall out with those we love 

And kiss again with tears ! 
For when we came where lies the child 

We lost in other years, 
There above the little grave, 
O there above the little grave, 

We kiss'd again with tears. ^ 

1 Over Cupid, the son of Love, or Venus, hung Spiritual Love, or Ura- 
nian Venus, and by her purifying presence made him, who was blind, see. 

2 Of this line Tennyson wrote to Mr. Dawson, the author of " Study of 
' The Princess : ' " 

" There was a period in my life when, as an artist— Turner for instance 
—takes rough sketches of landskip, etc., in order to work them eventually 
into some great picture, so I was in the habit of chronicling, in four or five 
words or more, whatever might strike me as picturesque in nature. I never 
put these down, and many and many a line has gone away on the north wind ; 
but some remain, e.g. : 

A full sea, glazed with muffled moonlight. 

Suggestion: The sea one night at Torquay, when Torquay was the most lovely 
sea village in England, though now a smoky town. The sky was covered with 
thin vapor and the moon was behind it." 

3 " Just seen that it was rich," i.e., just recognized as being rich. 

4 See Prologue, lines 236-239; Conclusion, line 15; Introduction, p. 14. 



CANTO II.] A MEDLEY. 37 



CANTO II. 

At break of day the college portress came ; 
She brought us academic silks, in hue 
The hlac, with a silken hood to each, 
And zon'd with gold ; and now when these were on, 
And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons, 
She, curtsying her obeisance, let us know 
The Princess Ida waited. Out we pac'd, 
I first, and, following thro' the porch that sang 1 
All round with laurel, issued in a court 

Compact of lucid ^ marbles, boss'd^ with lengths 10 

Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay 
I Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers. 
The Muses and the Graces,* group'd in threes, 
'Enring'd a billowing fountain. in the midst; 
And here and there on lattice edges lay 
Or book or lute ; but hastily we past. 
And up a flight of stairs into the hall. 

There at a board by tome and paper sat, 
I With two tame leopards couch'd beside licr throne, 
All beauty compass'd in a female form, 20 

The Princess ; liker to the inhabitant 
Of some clear planet close upon the sun. 
Than our man's earth ; such eyes were in her head, 
And so much grace and power, breathing down 

1 Referring to the murmurincr or humming of the wind through the leaves. 

2 Means here shining ; bright ; resplendent. 

3 Embossed; bestudded. 

4 In Greek mythology, the Muses, who w^ere nine in number, presided 
over literature, art, and the sciences. The Graces were three goddesses of 
loveliness and joy in nature and human life. 



3^ THE PRINCESS: [canto ii. 

From over her arch'd brows, with every turn 
Liv'd thro' her to the tips of her long hands, 
And to her feet. She rose her height, and said : 

" We give you welcome. Not without redound ^ 
Of use and glory to yourselves ye come, 

The first fruits of the stranger; after time, 30 

And that full voice which circles round the grave, 
Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. 
What! are the ladies of your land so tall? " 
" We of the court," said Cyril. " From the court," 
She answer'd ; " then ye know the Prince ? " And he : 
" The climax of his age ! as the' there were 
One rose in all the world, your Highness that. 
He worships your ideal." 2 She replied : 
*' We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear 
This barren verbiage, current among men, 40 

Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. 
Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem 
As arguing love of knowle'dge and of power ; 
Your language proves you still the child. Indeed, 
We dream not of him ; when we set our hand 
To this great work, we purpos'd with ourself 
Never to wed. You hkewise will do well, 
Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling 
The tricks which make us toys of men, that so, 
Some future time, if so indeed you will, 50 

You may with those self-styl'd our lords ally 
Your fortunes, justher balanc'd, scale with scale." 

At those high words, we, conscious of ourselves, 
Perus'd the matting ; then an officer 
Rose up, and read the statutes, such as these : 

1 Return ; result. 

2 " Your ideal," i.e., his idea or conception of you. 



CANTO II.] A MEDLEY. 39 

Not for three years to correspond with home ; 

Not for three years to cross the hberties ; 

Not for three years to speak with any men ; 

And many more, which hastily subscrib'd, 

We enter'd on the boards.^ And " Now," she cried, 60 

" Ye are green wood ; see ye warp not. Look, om* hall! 

Our statues! —not of those that men desire, 

Sleek Odahsques,2 or oracles of mode. 

Nor stunted squaws of West or East ; but she ^ 

That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she* 

The foundress of the Babylonian wall. 

The Carian Artemisia ^ strong in war. 

The Rhodope^ that built the pyramid, 

Clelia,^ Comelia,8 with the Palmyrene ^ 

1 " Enter'd on the boards," i.e., entered our names on the college reg- 
ister. 2 Female slaves in the East. 

3 Egeria, one of the prophetic nymphs of ancient Italy, from whom Numa 
Pompilius, second king of Rome, received instruction regarding forms of wor- 
ship. He was a Sabine by birth. 

* Semiramis, the mythical founder of the Assyrian Empire. The building 
of Babylon, with all its wonders, is referred to her. 

5 Queen of Halicarnassus, the strongest city in all Caria. She was a vas- 
sal of the Persian empire, and joined Xerxes in his expedition against Greece 
in 480 B.C. At the battle of Salamis she distinguished herself by her courage 
and perseverance, and upon her destruction of a ship Xerxes is said to have 
exclaimed: " My men have become women ; my women, men." 

6 A Greek slave who lived in the seaport of ancient Egypt, and to whom, 
on account of her beauty and fame, the building of the third pyramid was re- 
ferred. History has contradicted her right to the foundation, and declares it 
to have been made by the beautiful Egyptian queen Nitocris. 

"^ A Roman maiden, one of the twenty hostages given Lars Porsena, King 
of Clusium, when he withdrew his troops from Rome. She escaped from 
the Etruscans and swam across the Tiber. The Romans sent her back, but 
Porsena dismissed her with a part of the hostages ; and later her countrymen 
honored her with a statue. 

8 The daughter of Scipio Africanus and mother of the Gracchi. 

9 Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, who, upon the death of her husband, in 
266, became regent for her sons. She led her troops in martial attire an4 



40 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii. 

That fought Aurehan, and the Roman brows 70 

Of Agrippina.i Dwell with these, and lose 

Convention,^ since to look on noble forms 

Makes noble thro' the sensuous organism 

That which is higher. O lift your natures up ; 

Embrace our aims ; work out your freedom. Girls, 

Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd ; 

Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, 

The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 

And slander, die. Better not be at all 

Than not be noble. Leave us ; you may go. 80 

To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue 

The fresh arrivals of the week before ; 

For they press in from all the provinces, 

And fill the hive." 

She spoke, and bowing wav'd 
Dismissal. Back again we crost the court 
To Lady Psyche's. As we enter'd in. 
There sat along the forms, like morning doves 
That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, 
A patient range of pupils ; she herself 

Erect behind a desk of satinwood,^ 90 

A quick brunette, well molded, falcon-eyed, 
And on the hither side,* or so she look'd. 
Of twenty summers. At her left, a child, 
In shining draperies, headed like a star,^ 
Her maiden babe, a double April old. 



shared their toils. Conquered at last by the Emperor Aurelian, she was 
shackled with gold and led in the emperor's triumph along the Sacred Way. 

1 Daughter of the Emperor Augustus and wife of Germanicus. She was 
gifted with a noble mind and character. 

2 See Note 4, p. 22. 

3 The wood of an Indian tree, which takes a high polish. 

4 " On the hither side," i.e., less than. 

5 " Headed like a star," i.e., with shining golden hair. 



CANTO II.] A MEDLEY. 41 

Aglaia 1 slept. We sat ; the Lady glanc'd ; 

Then Florian, but no hveher than the dame 

That whisper'd *' Asses' ears" among the sedge r^ 

" My sister." " Comely, too, by all that's fair," 

Said Cyril. " O hush, hush!" and she began: 100 

" This world was once a fluid haze of light,^ 
Till toward the center set the starry tides, 
And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast 
The planets ; then the monster, then the man, 
Tattoo'd or woaded,^ winter-clad in skins. 
Raw from the prime, and crushing down his mate;^ 
As yet we find in barbarous isles, and here 
Among the lowest." 

Thereupon she took 
A bird's-eye view of all the ungracious past ; 
Glanc'd at the legendary Amazon ^ ' no 

As emblematic of a nobler age ; 
Apprais'd the Lycian custom;^ spoke of those 

1 A Greek word meaning beauty, brightness. It was the name of one of 
the Graces. 

2 The Phrygian king, Midas, told the secret of the changing of his ears 
(because of Apollo's anger at his decision in a trial of musical skill) to his 
wife. She, unable to hold the secret, told it to the waters of a marsh, end 
the growing sedges whispered it to the world (see Chaucer's Wife of Bath's 
Tale, and Ovid's Metamorphoses). 

3 This is the theory of the origin of the world known as the Nebular Hy- 
pothesis. 

4 Dyed with the blue of the woad plant, with which the ancient Britons 
stained their bodies. 

5 " Raw from the prime," etc., i.e., raw from the beginning, and knock- 
ing down his mate in order to gain her in marriage. 

6 According to Greek story the Amazons were a race of women who lived 
to the north of the Black Sea, and gave themselves to war and the chase. 

■^ " Apprais'd," etc., i.e., praised the custom of the Lycians, who took the 
name from the mother and not from the fntlier, and, when asked to give an 
account of parentage, named niotlier, grandmother, great-grandmother, etc. 



42 THE PRINCESS: lCANTo ii. 

That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo ;i 
Ran down the Persian, Grecian, Roman hnes 
Of empire," and the woman's state in each, 
How far from just ; till, warming with her theme, 
She fulmined ^ out her scorn of laws Salique ^ 
And little-footed China,^ touch'd on Mahomet ^ 



1 " Lay at wine with," etc., i.e., shared the banquet with lord and priest. 
Lar and Lucumo were titles of honor among the Etruscans. That women 
enjoyed freedom in public feasting is shown in the sculptures which remain 
to us. It was customary at their banquets for the guests to lie upon couches 
about the table. 

2 In ancient Persia women had little independence, and were looked upon 
as chattels. In Homeric Greece their independence was as marked as in the 
feudal times of Europe, but in later Greece they were secluded and deprived 
of every sort of social freedom. Thucydides said that woman was happiest 
who was least talked of. The very opposite conditions were in Rome; e.g., 
Agrippina, Cornelia, Hortensia, etc. 

In 1694 Master William Wotton wrote in his Reflections upon Ancient 
and Modern Learning, after the manner of his times : " When Learning first 
came up [at the beginning of the Renaissance], men fancied that every- 
thing could be done by it, and they were charm'd with the Eloquence of its 
Professors, who did not fail to set forth all its Advantages in the most engag- 
ing Dress. It was so very modish that the Fair Sex seemed to believe that 
Greek and Latin added to their Charms ; and Plato and Aristotle, untranslated, 
were frequent Ornaments of their Closets. One would think by the Effects 
that it was a proper Way of Educating them, since there are no Accounts in 
History of so many truly great Women in any one Age as are to be found 
between the Years MD. and MDC." 

3 Fulminated ; uttered in a vehement manner. 

* The Salic law excluded women from inheriting certain lands. The code 
of which it is a part is supposed to have originated with the Salian Franks 
(Teutons) in the fourth or fifth century. Its discrimination against woman 
proprietorship preserved the phrase " Salic law" to modern times. In the 
fourteenth century women were by its application excluded from the throne 
of France. 

5 Women of the upper classes in China have their feet deformed in early 
years by tight bandaging. 

6 The founder of Mohammedanism, who denied that women had souls, 
upheld polygamy, and permitted divorce at the will of the husband. 



CANTO II.] A MEDLEY. 43 

With much contempt, and came to chivalry ,i 

When some respect, however sHght, was paid 120 

To woman, superstition all awry. 

However, then commenc'd the dawn ; a beam 

Had slanted forward, falling in a land 

Of promise ; fruit would follow. Deep, indeed, 

Their debt of thanks' to her who first had dar'd 

To leap the rotten pales of prejudice, 

Disyoke their necks from custom, and assert 

None lordher than themselves but that which made 

Woman and man. She had founded ; they must build. 

Here might they learn whatever men were taught; 130 

Let them not fear. Some said their heads were less ; 

Some men's were small ; not they the least of men ; 

For often fineness compensated size. 

Besides, the brain was like the hand, and grew 

With using ; thence the man's, if more was more ; 

He took advantage of his strength to be 

First in the field ; some ages had been lost ; 

But woman ripen' d earlier, and her hfe 

Was longer ; and albeit their glorious names 

Were fewer, scatter'd stars, yet since in truth 140 

The highest is the measure of the man. 

And not the Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay, 

Nor those horn-handed breakers of the glebe, 

But Homer, Plato, Verulam;^ even so 

With woman ; and in arts of government 

1 The system of military and social privileges which prevailed in Europe 
during the middle ages. By inculcating an ideal standard of action for men, 
—courtesy, generosity, valor, and honor, and a defense of the weak and op- 
pressed by the strong, — chivalry raised the estimate of women, as well as the 
manners of men. 

2 Homer, the chief of epic poets; Plato (born 427 B.C.), the greatest of 
philosophers ; Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam ( 1 561-1626), the leader in the 
reformation of modern science. The speaker takes these three as represent- 
ative of the wise in ancient and modern times. 



44 THE PRINCESS- [canto ii. 

Elizabeth 1 and others ;2 arts of war, 

The peasant Joan^ and others;^ arts of grace, 

Sappho ^ and others ^ vied with any man : 

And, last not least, she who had left her place. 

And bow'd her state to them, that they might grow 150 

To use and power on this oasis, lapt '^ 

In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight 

Of ancient influence and scorn. 

At last 
She rose upon a wind of prophecy 
Dilating on the future : '* Everywhere 
Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, 
Two in the tangled business of the world, 
Two in the liberal ofhces of life, 
Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss 
Of science and the secrets of the mind ; 160 

Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more ; 
And everywhere the broad and bounteous earth 
Should bear a double growth of those rare souls, 
Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world." 

She ended here, and beckon'd us ; the rest 
Parted;^ and, glowing full-faced welcome, she 

1 Queen of England from 1558 to 1603, and central figure in the great in- 
tellectual and material energy and preeminence of England at that time. 

^ Semiramis, Dido, Catherine de' Medici, Catherine II. of Russia, Maria 
Theresa of Austria, etc. 

3 Joan of Arc, a French peasant girl who, while tending sheep, con- 
ceived the notion of ridding her country of the English army of the Hundred 
Years' War. She led the French to victory, and crowned Charles VII. King 
of France in 1429. 

* Artemisia, Zenobia, Boadicea, and Mary Ambree and the Maid of Sara- 
gossa, who are celebrated by poets. 

5 This poet of Greece, and one of the greatest of the world, lived in the sixth 
century B.C. Fragments which still exist attest the splendor of her genius. 

6 Erinna, Corinna, Myrto, Margaret of Navarre, Vittoria Colonna, Renee 
of Ferrara, Olympia Morata, etc. '^ Infolded. S Departed. 



CANTO II.] . A MEDLEY. 45 

Began to address us, and was moving on 

In gratulation, till as when a boat 

Tacks, and the slacken'd sail flaps, all her voice 

Faltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried: 170 

" My brother! " " Well, my sister." " O," she said, 

" What do you here? and in this dress ? — and these ? 

Why, who are these ? A wolf within the fold ! 

A pack of wolves! the Lord be gracious to me! 

A plot- a plot, a plot, to ruin all! " 

" No plot, no plot," he answer'd. " Wretched boy, 

How saw you not the inscription on the gate. 

Let no man enter in on pain of death ? " 

" And if I had," he answer'd, " who could think 

The softer Adams of your Academe,^ 180 

O sister, sirens 2 tho' they be, were such 

As chanted on the blanching bones of men? " 

" But you will find it otherwise," she said. 

" You jest ; ill jesting with edge-tools! My vow 

Binds me to speak, and O that iron will, 

That axlike edge unturnable, our Head, 

The Princess." " Well then. Psyche, take my hfe. 

And nail me like a weasel on a grange 

For warning; 3 bury me beside the gate. 

And cut this epitaph above my bones: 190 

' Here lies a brother by a sister slain. 

All for the common good of womankind.' " 

" Let me die too," said Cyril, " having seen 

And heard the Lady Psyche." 

I struck in : 

" Albeit so mask'd, madam, I love the truth. 

1 Academy ; the grove and gymnasium near Athens where Plato taught. 
The paradisical nature of the place is suggested by the word " Adams." 

2 Sea nymphs of Greek legend who fascinated those who came witliin 
hearing of their singing, and then destroyed them. 

3 Refers to the hanging of weasels and mice upon a granary as a warning 
of the same fate to like filchers. 



46 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii. 

Receive it ; and in me behold the Prince 

Your countryman, afifianc'd years ago 

To the Lady Ida. Here, for here she was, 

And thus (what other way was left?) I came." 

•'O sir, O Prince, I have no country — none; 200 

If any, this-; but none. Whate'er I was 

Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. 

Affianc'd, sir? love-whispers may not breathe 

Within this vestal 1 hmit, and how should I, 

Who am not mine, say hve ? The thunderbolt 

Hangs silent; but prepare: I speak; it falls." 

" Yet pause," I said : " for that inscription there, 

I think no more of deadly lurks therein 

Than in a clapper clapping in a garth,2 

To scare the fowl from fruit; if more there be, 210 

If more and acted on, what follows? War ; 

Your own work marr'd ; for this your Academe, 

Whichever side be victor, in the halloo 

Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass 

With all fair theories only made to gild 

A stormless summer." " Let the Princess judge 

Of that," she said; "farewell, sir — and to you. 

I shudder at the sequel, but I go." 

" Are you that Lady Psyche," I rejoin'd, 
" The fifth in line from that old Florian, 220 

Yet hangs his portrait in my father's hall 
(The gaunt old baron with his beetle^ brow 
Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights) 
As he bestrode * my grandsire, when he fell. 
And all else fled. We point to it, and we say, 

1 A word derived from the name Vesta, the Roman goddess of the sacred 
fire and hearth. Vestals were maidens of spotless life, who served the goddess. 

2 " A clapper," etc., i.e., a windmill clapping in a garden. 

3 Prominent or overhanging, * In order to defend. 



CANTO II.] A MEDLEY. 47 

'The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold, 

But branches current yet in kindred veins.' " 

" Are you that Psyche," Florian added ; " she 

With whom I sang about the morning hills, 

Flung ball, flew kite, and rac'd the purple fly, 230 

And snar'd the squirrel of the glen? Are you 

That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow, 

To smooth my pillow, mix the foaming draught 

Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read 

My sickness down to happy dreams? Are you 

That brother-sister Psyche, both in one ? 

You were that Psyche, but what are you now? " 

" You are that Psyche," Cyril said, " for whom 

I would be that forever which I seem. 

Woman, if I might sit beside your feet, 240 

And glean your scatter'd sapience." 

Then once more, 
"Are you that Lady Psyche," I began, 
" That on her bridal morn, before she past 
From all her old companions, when the king 
Kiss'd her pale cheek, declar'd that ancient ties 
Would still be dear beyond the southern hills ; 
That were there any of our people there 
In want or peril, there was one to hear 
And help them? Look! for such are these and I." 
"Are you that Psyche," Florian ask'd, "to whom, 250 

In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn 
Came flying while you sat beside the well? 
The creature laid his muzzle on your lap. 
And sobb'd, and you sobb'd with it, and the blood 
Was sprinkled on your kirtle,^ and you wept. 
That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept. 
O by the bright head of my little niece, 
You were that Psyche, and what are you now?" 

1 Petticoat. 



48 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii. 

" You are that Psyche," Cyril said again, 

" The mother of the sweetest httle maid 260 

That ever crow'd for kisses." 

"Out upon it!" 
She answer'd ; "peace! and why should I not play 
The Spartan mother ^ with emotion, be 
The Lucius Junius Brutus'^ of my kind? 
Him you call great. He for the common weal, 
The fading politics of mortal Rome, 
As I might slay this child, if good need were, 
Slew both his sons. And I, shall I, on whom 
The secular 3 emancipation turns 

Of half this world,'* be swerv'd from right to save 2.70 

A prince, a brother? A little will I yield. 
Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you. 
O hard, when love and duty clash! I fear 
My conscience will not count me fleckless ;^ yet — 
Hear my conditions: promise (otherwise 
You perish) as you came, to slip away 
To-day, — to-morrow, — soon. It shall be said, 
' These women were too barbarous, would not learn ; 
They fled, who might have sham'd us.' Promise, all." 

What could we else? we promis'd each ; and she, 280 

Like some wild creature newly cag'd, commenc'd 
A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paus'd 
By Florian, holding out her hly arms 
Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said : 

1 In the teaching of ancient Sparta all existed for the state, and private 
feeling must be subordinate to public good. Anecdotes are common which 
show the devotion of mothers to this system. 

^ A consul of early Rome, who, having detected his two sons in a plot 
against the republic, condemned them to death. 

3 Means here, living for ages ; permanent. 

* " Of half this world," i.e., of women. 

5 Blameless ; innocent. 



CANTO II.] A MEDLEY. 49 

" I knew you at the first ; tho' you have grown 
You scarce have alter'd. I am sad and glad 
To see you, Florian. /give thee to death, 
My brother! it was duty spoke, not I. 
My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. 
Our mother, is she well?" 

With that she kiss'd _ 290 

His forehead, then, a moment after, clung 
About him, and betwixt them blossom'd up 
From out a common vein of memory 
Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, 
And far allusion, till the gracious dews ^ 
Began to glisten and to fall ; and while 
They stood so rapt, we gazing, came a voice : 
" I brought a message here from Lady Blanche." 
Back started she, and turning round we saw 
The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood, 300 

Melissa, with her hand upon the lock, 
A rosy blonde, and in a college gown, 
That clad her hke an April daffodilly 
(Her mother's color 2), with her lips apart, 
And all her thoughts as fair ^ within her eyes 
As bottom agates seen to wave and float 
In crystal currents of clear morning seas. 

So stood that same fair creature at the door. 
Then Lady Psyche: "Ah — Mehssa— you! 

You heard us? " And Melissa: " O pardon me! 310 

I heard, I could not help it, did not wish ; 
But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not, 
Nor think I bear that heart within my breast, 
To give three gallant gentlemen to death." 

1 Tears. 2 The color worn by the students of Lady Blanche. 

* Clear ; distinct. 



50 THE PRINCESS: [camo ii. 

" I trust you," said the other, " for we two 
Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine ; 
But yet your mother's jealous temperament- 
Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove 
The Danaid ^ of a leaky vase, for fear 

This whole foundation ruin,^ and I lose 320 

My honor, these their hves." " Ah, fear me not," 
Replied Melissa; "no — I would not tell. 
No, not for all Aspasia's ^ cleverness ; 
No, not to answer, madam, all those hard things 
That Sheba* came to ask of Solomon." 
** Be it so," the other, " that we still may lead 
The new light up, and culminate in peace ; 
For Solomon may come to Sheba yet." 
Said Cyril : " Madam, he the wisest man 

Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls 330 

Of Lebanonian^ cedar; nor should you, 
(Tho', madam, you should answer, we would ask,) 
Less welcome find among us, if you came 
Among us, debtors for our lives to you, 
Myself for something more." He said not what, 
But " Thanks," she answer'd. " Go ; we have been too long 
Together. Keep your hoods about the face ; 
They do so that affect abstraction here. 
Speak little ; mix not with the rest ; and hold 
Your promise ; all, I trust, may yet be well." 340 

1 The fifty Danaides, or Danaids, daughters of Danaus, King of Argos, 
who, in Greek mythology, married the fifty sons of y^gyptus, King of Egypt, 
and who (all but one) killed their husbands on their wedding night, were con- 
demned to carry water in sieves forever. 

!i " This whole foundation ruin," i.e., the whole college fall to ruin. 

3 A woman of strong intellect and personality, who exercised a consider- 
able influence in Athens during the age of Pericles. 

4 For an account of the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon, see i Kings x. 

I-I3- 

5 From Mount Lebanon in Palestine. 



CANTO II.] A MEDLEY. 51 

We turn'd to go, but Cyril took the child, 
And held her round the knees against his waist, 
And blew the swoll'n cheek of a trumpeter, 
While Psyche watch'd them, smiling, and the child 
Push'd her flat hand against his face and laugh'd ; 
And thus our conference clos'd. 

And then we stroll'd 
For half the day thro' stately theaters 
Bench'd crescentwise. In each we sat, we heard 
The grave professor. On the lecture slate 

The circle lounded under female hands 350 

With flawless demonstration. Follow'd then 
A classic lecture, rich in sentiment. 
With scraps of thunderous epic lilted out ^ 
By violet-hooded doctors, elegies 
And quoted odes, and jewels ^ five words long 
That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time 
Sparkle forever. Then we dipt in all 
That treats of whatsoever is, — the state, 
The total chronicles of man, the mind. 

The morals, something of the frame,^ the rock, 360 

The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower, 
Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest, 
And whatsoever can be taught and known ; 
Till like three horses that have broken fence, 
And glutted all night long breast-deep in com, 
We issued gorg'd with knowledge, and I spoke : 
" Why, sirs, they do all this as well as we." 
"They hunt old trails," said Cyril, "very well; 
But when did woman ever yet invent ? " * 

1 " Lilted out," i.e., uttered in a sprightly, animated, tripping manner. 

2 Means here, sayings, aphorisms, precepts, proverbs, — wisdom which 
Time holds as a gem on his hand. 

3 The human frame. 

* Having by convention been debarred from instruction and from the 



52 THE PRINCESS: [canto li. 

"Ungracious!" answer'd Florian; "have you learnt 370 

No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talk'd 

The trash that made me sick, and almost sad? " 

" O trash," he said, " but with a kernel in it. 

Should I not call her wise who made me wise ? 

And learnt? I learnt more from her in a flash 

Than if my brainpan were an empty hull, 

And every Muse tumbled a science in. 

A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, 

And round these halls a thousand baby loves 

Fly, twanging headless arrows at the hearts, 380 

Whence follows many a vacant pang ; but O 

With me, sir, enter'd in the bigger boy,^ 

The head of all the golden-shafted firm, 

The long-limb'd lad that had a Psyche too ; 

He cleft me thro' the stomacher; 2 and now 

What think you of it, Florian? do I chase 

The substance or the shadow? will it hold? 

I have no sorcerer's malison ^ on me, 

No ghostly hauntings like his Highness. I 

Flatter myself that always everywhere 390 

I know the substance when I see it. Well, 

Are castles 4 shadows? Three of them? Is she, 

The sweet proprietress, a shadow? If not, 

Shall those three castles patch my tatter'd coat? 

For dear are those three castles to my wants, 

And dear is sister Psyche to my heart. 

And two dear things are one of double worth ; 

freedom necessary to develop their originating and inventive faculties, and 
never having created a great school in literature or art, women, even with 
instruction and untrammeled conditions, never will, — is Cyril's position. 

1 Eros, or Cupid, who cast golden arrows. In mythology. Psyche, the per- 
sonified soul, a fair girl with the wings of a butterfly, was beloved of Eros. 

2 Used here for the woman's bodice which Cyril was wearing. 
2 Curse. 4 See Canto I. line 78. 



CANTO II.] A MEDLEY. 53 

And much I might have said, but that my zone 

Unmann'd me. Then the doctors! O to hear 

The doctors! O to watch the thirsty plants 400 

Imbibing! Once or twice I thought to roar, 

To break my chain, to shake my mane ; — but thou 

Modulate me, soul of mincing mimicry! 

Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat ; 

Abase those eyes that ever lov'd to meet 

Star-sisters answering under crescent brows ; 

Abate the stride which speaks of man, and loose 

A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek. 

Where they, like swallows coming out of time, 

Will wonder why they came. — But hark, the bell 410 

For dinner; let us go! " 

And in we stream'd 
Among the columns, pacing staid and still 
By twos and threes, till all from end to end, 
With beauties every shade of brown and fair, 
In colors gayer than the morning mist, 
The long hall glitter'd like a bed of flowers.^ 
How might a man not wander from his wits 
Pierc'd thro' with eyes, but that I kept mine own 
Intent on her who, rapt in glorious dreams, 

The second sight of some Astraean^ age, 420 

Sat compass'd with professors ; they, the while, 
Discuss'd a doubt and tost it to and fro ; 
A clamor thicken'd, mixt with inmost terms 

1 Tennyson says, in a letter to Mr. Rolfe : " Lady Psyche's ' side' (that 
is a Cambridge equivalent of ' pupils ') wore lilac robes, and Lady Blanche's, 
robes of daffodil color. These two made the long hall glitter ' like a bed of 
flowers.' " 

2 "The second sight," etc., i.e., the prophetic sight of a golden age. 
Astraea, daughter of Zeus and the goddess of justice, lived among men dur- 
ing the golden age, and was the last of the divinities to leave the earth in the 
iron age. She would be the first to return, it was said, when time should 
bring back the age of gold. 



54 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii. 

Of art and science. Lady Blanche alone, 
Of faded form and haughtiest hneaments, 
With all her autumn tresses falsely brown, 
Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger cat 
In act to spring. 

At last a solemn grace 
Concluded, and we sought the gardens. There 
One walk'd reciting by herself, and one 430 

In this hand held a volume as to read, 
And smooth'd a petted peacock down with that ; 
Some to a low song oar'd a shallop by. 
Or under arches of the marble bridge 

Hung, shadow'd from the heat ; some hid and sought • 

In the orange thickets ; others tost a ball 
Above the fountain jets, and back again 
With laughter ; others lay about the lawns, 
Of the older sort, and murmur'd that their May 
Was passing; what was learning unto them? 440 

They wish'd to marry ; they could rule a house ; 
Men hated learned women. But we three 
Sat muffled like the Fates ;i and often came 
Melissa, hitting all we saw with shafts 
Of gentle satire, kin to charity, 

That harm'd not. Then day droopt ; the chapel bells 
Call'd us. We left the walks ; we mixt with those 
Six hundred maidens clad in purest white,- 
Before two streams of hght from wall to wall. 
While the great organ almost burst his pipes, 450 

Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court 
A long melodious thunder to the sound 

1 The three divinities who, in classic mythology, presided over the birth, 
life, and death of mortals. 

2 From the letter quoted in Note i, p. 53 : " They were in white at chapel, 
as we Cantabs were at our Trinity College chapel in Cambridge." " Can- 
tabs " is an abbreviated form of " Cantabrigians " (students at Cambridge). 



CANTO III.] A MEDLEY, 55 

Of solemn psalms and silver litanies, 

The work of Ida, to call down from heaven 

A blessing on her labors for the world. 



Sweet and low, sweet and low, 

Wind of the western sea, 
Low, low, breathe and blow, 

Wind of the western sea! 
Over the rolling waters go. 
Come from the dying moon, and blow, 

Blow him again to me ; 
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest. 

Father will come to thee soon ; 
Rest, rest, on mother's breast. 

Father will come to thee soon ; 
Father will come to his babe in the nest, 
Silver sails all out of the west 

Under the silver moon ; 
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.' 



CANTO III. 



Morn, in the white wake of the morning star, 
Came furrowing all the orient into gold. 
We rose, and each by other drest with care, 
Descended to the court, that lay three parts 
In shadow ; but the Muses' heads ^ were touch'd 
Above the darkness from their native East. 

There while we stood beside the fount, and watch'd 
Or seem'd to watch the dancing bubble, approach'd 
Melissa, ting'd with wan ^ from lack of sleep, 

See Introduction, p. 14. 2 See Canto II. line 13. 

Pallor ; an adjective used as a noun, 



56 THE PRINCESS: [canto hi. 

Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes lo 

The circled Iris ^ of a night of tears. 

And " Fly," she cried, " O fly, while yet you may! 

My mother knows." And when I ask'd her " How? " 

" My fault," she wept, " my fault! and yet not mine ; 

Yet mine in part. O hear me, pardon me! 

My mother, 'tis her wont from night to night 

To rail at Lady Psyche and her side. 

She says the Princess should have been the Head, 

Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms ; 

And so it was agreed when first they came; 20 

But Lady Psyche was the right hand now, 

And she the left, or not or seldom used ; 

Hers more than half the students, all the love. 

And so last night she fell to canvass you : 

Her countrywomen ! she did not envy her. 

' Who ever saw such wild barbarians? 

Girls ! — more like men! ' and at these words the snake, 

My secret, seem'd to stir within my breast ; 

And oh, sirs, could I help it, but my cheek 

Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye 30 

To fix and make me hotter, till she laugh'd : 

*0 marvelously modest maiden, you! 

Men! girls, hke men! why, if they had been men 

You need not set your thoughts in rubric - thus 

For wholesale comment.' Pardon, I am sham'd 

That I must needs repeat for my excuse 

What looks so little graceful. * Men ' (for still 

My mother went revolving on the word), 

'And so they are, — very like men indeed,— 

1 Iris, in Greek mythology, was the goddess of the rainbow, a beautiful 
maiden especially attached to Hera or luno. The word is used here for the 
band of color round the eyes after sleeplessness and tears, 

2 Red. In old manuscripts and books, comments, injunctions, directions, 
etc., were often put in red characters. Melissa's blushes are here meant. 



CANTO III.] A MEDLEY. 57 

And with that woman closeted for hours ! ' 40 

Then came these dreadful words out one by one : 

' Why — these — a?'e — men ! ' I shudder'd ; ' and you know it ! ' 

' O, ask me nothing,' I said. * And she knows too, 

And she conceals it.' So my mother clutch'd 

The truth at once, but with no word from me ; 

And now thus early risen she goes to inform 

The Princess. Lady Psyche will be crush'd ; 

But you may yet be sav'd, and therefore fly ; 

But heal me with your pardon ere you go." 

"What pardon,! sweet Melissa, for a blush? " 50 

Said Cyril; *' Pale one, blush again. Than wear 
Those lilies, better blush our lives away. 
Yet let us breathe for one hour more in heaven," 
He added, '' lest some classic angel ^ speak 
In scorn of us, ' They mounted, Ganymedes,^ 
To tumble, Vulcans,* on the second morn.' 
But I will melt this marble ^ into wax 
To yield us farther furlough ; " and he went. 

Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought 
He scarce would prosper. " Tell us," Florian ask'd, 60 

" How grew this feud betwixt the right and left." 
" O, long ago," she said, "betwixt these two 
Division smolders hidden ; 'tis my mother, 
Too jealous, often fretful as the wind 

1 Supply " is necessary." 

2 " Some classic angel," i.e., some member of the college learned in the 
classics. 

3 Ganymede was a beautiful Trojan youth who was carried to heaven to 
be cupbearer to Zeus. 

4 Vulcan was cast from heaven and fell to the earth (see Pope's Homer's 
Iliad, Book I. lines 760-765, and Milton's Paradise Lost, Book I. lines 
740-746). 

5 Lady Blanche's set purpose. 



58 THE PRINCESS: [canto hi. 

Pent in a crevice ; much I bear with her. 

I never knew my father, but she says 

(God help her! ) she was wedded to a fool; 

And still she rail'd against the state of things. 

She had the care of Lady Ida's youth, 

And from the Queen's decease she brought her up. 70 

But when your sister came she won the heart 

Of Ida. They were still together, — grew 

(For so they said themselves) inosculated ;i 

Consonant chords that shiver to one note; 2 

One mind in all things. Yet my mother still 

Affirms your Psyche thiev'd her theories, 

And angled with them for her pupils' love. 

She calls her plagiarist, — I know not what. 

But I must go, I dare not tarry," and light 

As flies the shadow of a bird, she fled. 80 

Then murmur'd Florian, gazing after her, 
" An open-hearted maiden, true and pure. 
If I could love, why this were she. How pretty 
Her blushing was, and how she blush'd again, 
As if to close with Cyril's random wish! 
Not hke your Princess cramm'd with erring pride, 
Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow." 

" The crane," I said, " may chatter of the crane, 
The dove may murmur of the dove, but I, 

An eagle, clang an eagle to the sphere.^ 90 

My princess, O my princess! true, she errs, 
But in her own grand way. Being herself 

1 Blended in one ; united. 

2 Like chords in instruments of the same kind when placed near each 
other, the one vibrating when the corresponding chord in the other is struck. 

3 " To the sphere," i.e., to the upper air. There is a comparison similar 
to these three lines in Theocritus, Idyll IX. line 31. 



CANTO III.] A MEDLEY. 59 

Three times more noble than three score of men, 

She sees herself in every woman else, 

And so she wears her error like a crown 

To blind the truth and me. For her, and her, 

Hebes ^ are they to hand ambrosia, mix 

The nectar ; but— ah, she— whene'er she moves 

The Samian Here ^ rises, and she speaks 

A Memnon smitten with the morning sun." ^ 100 

So saying, from the court we pac'd, and gain'd 
The terrace rang'd along the northern front, 
And leaning there on those balusters, high 
Above the empurpled champaign, drank the gale 
That, blown about the foliage underneath. 
And sated with the innumerable rose, 
Beat balm upon our eyehds. Hither came 
Cyril, and yawning, '' O hard task," he cried ; 
" No fighting shadows* here! I forc'd a way 
Thro' solid opposition crabb'd and gnarl'd. no 

Better to clear prime ^ forests, heave and thump 
A league of street in summer solstice down, 
Than hammer at this reverend gentlewoman. 
I knock'd and, bidden, enter'd ; found her there 
At point to move,^ and settled in her eyes 
The green, malignant hght of coming storm. 
Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oil'd 
As man's could be ; yet maiden-meek I pray'd 
Concealment. She demanded who we were, 

1 Hebe was the goddess of youth and spring, who handed about cups to 
the gods till Ganymede was borne to heaven. 

2 Hera or Juno, queen of heaven, had especial love for the island of 
Samos. 

3 The colossal statue of Memnon, son of the dawn, at Thebes in Egypt, 
gave out musical sound when touched with the morning sunbeams. 

* Referring to the curse upon the royal family. 5 Primeval. 

^ "At point to move," i.e., about to leave her room. 



6o THE PRINCESS: [canto hi. 

And why we came. I fabled nothing fair,i 120 

But, your example pilot, told her all. 

Up went the hush'd amaze of hand and eye. 

But when I dwelt upon your old affiance, 

She answer'd sharply that I talk'd astray. 

I urg'd the fierce inscription on the gate. 

And our three lives. True — we had lim'd^ ourselves 

With open eyes, and we must take the chance. 

But such extremes, I told her, well might harm 

The woman's cause. ' Not more than now,' she said, 

'So puddled 3 as it is with favoritism.' 130 

I tried the mother's heart : shame might befall 

Melissa, khowing, saying not she knew. 

Her answer was, ' Leave me to deal with that.' 

I spoke of w^ar to come and man.y deaths, 

And she replied, her duty was to speak, 

And duty, duty, clear of consequences. 

I grew discourag'd, sir; but since I knew 

No rock so hard but that a little wave 

May beat admission in a thousand years, 

I recommenc'd : * Decide not ere you pause. 140 

I find you here but in the second place. 

Some say the third, — the authentic foundress you. 

I offer boldly : we will seat you highest. 

Wink at our advent, help my Prince to gain 

His rightful bride, and here I promise you 

Some palace in our land, w^here 3^ou shall reign 

The head and heart of all our fair she-world,"^ 

And your great name flow on with broadening time 

Forever.' W^ell, she balanc'd this a little, 

And told me she would answer us to-day, 150 

Meantime be mute ; thus much, nor more, I gain'd." 

1 " Fabled nothing fair," i.e., made no fine fable or story. 

2 Entangled ; insnared, as birds with viscous substance. 

3 Made muddy or foul. 4 See Note 2, p. 23. 



CANTO III.] A MEDLEY. 6l 

He ceasing, came a message from the Head : 
That afternoon the Princess rode to take 
The dip ^ of certain strata to the north. 
Would we go with her? We should find the land 
Worth seeing, and the river made a fall 
Out yonder ; then she pointed on to where 
A double hill ran up his furrowy forks 
Beyond the thick-leaved platans "^ of the vale. 

Agreed to, this, the day fled on thro' all l6o 

Its range of duties to the appointed hour. 
Then summon'd to the porch we went. She stood 
Among her maidens, higher by the head. 
Her back against a pillar, her foot on one 
Of those tame leopards. Kittenlike he roll'd 
And paw'd about her sandal. I drew near ; 
I gaz'd. On a sudden my strange seizure came 
Upon me, the weird vision of our house:- 
The Princess Ida seem'd a hollow show, 

Her gay-furr'd cats a painted fantasy, 170 

Her college and her maidens empty masks, 
And I myself the shadow of a dream. 
For all things were and were not. Yet I felt 
My heart beat thick with passion and with awe ; 
Then from my breast the involuntary sigh 
Brake,*^ as she smote me with the light of eyes 
That lent my knee desire to kneel, and shook 
My pulses, till to horse we got, and so 
Went forth in long retinue following up 
The river as it narrow' d to the hills. 180 

I rode beside her and to me she said : 
" O friend, we trust that you esteem'd us not 

1 The angle which the strata made with the horizontal plane. 

2 Plane trees. 3 Old form of " broke." 



62 THE PRINCESS: [canto hi. 

Too harsh to your companion yestermom ; 

Unwillingly we spake." ^ " No — not to her," 

I answer'd, " but to one of whom we spake 

Your Highness might have seem'd the thing you say." 

" Again? " she cried ; " are you ambassadresses 

From him to me? We give you, being strange, 

A license ; speak, and let the topic die." 

I stammer'd that I knew him— could have wish'd — 190 

" Our king expects — was there no precontract ? 
There is no truer-hearted — ah, you seem 
All he prefigur'd, and he could not see 
The bird of passage flying south but long'd 
To follow. Surely, if your Highness keep 
Your purport, you will shock him ev'n to death, 
Or baser courses, children of despair." 

" Poor boy," she said, " can he not read — no books? 
Quoit, tennis, ball— no games? nor deals in that 
Which men delight in, martial exercise? 200 

To nurse a bhnd ideal like a girl, 
Methinks he seems no better than a girl. 
As girls were once, as we ourself - have been. 
We had our dreams ; perhaps he mixt with them. 
We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it, 
Being other— since we learnt our meaning here, 
To hft the woman's fall'n divinity 
Upon an even pedestal with man." 

She paus'd, and added with a haughtier smile : 
"And as to precontracts, we move, my friend, 2io 

At no man's beck, but know ourself and thee, 
O Vashti, noble Vashti!^ Summon'd out, 

1 Old form of " spoke." 

2 The royal style, which expressed the dignity of the Princess. 
8 See Esther i. 



CANTO III.] A MEDLEY. 63 

She kept her state, and left the drunken king 
To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms." 

" Alas, your Highness breathes full east," ^ I said, 
" On that which leans to you. I know the Prince, 
I prize his truth ; and then how vast a work 
To assail this gray 2 preeminence of man ! 
You grant me license; might I use it? Think: 
Ere half be done perchance your hfe may fail; 220 

Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan, 
And takes and ruins all ; and thus yoiur pains 
May only make that footprint upon sand 
Which old-recurring waves of prejudice 
Resmooth to nothing. Might I dread ^ that you, 
With only Fame for spouse, and your great deeds 
For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss. 
Meanwhile, what every woman counts her due. 
Love, children, happiness? " 

And she exclaim'd: 
" Peace, you young savage of the northern wild! 230 

What! tho' your Prince's love were hke a god's, 
Have we not made ourself the sacrifice? 
You are bold indeed, — we are not talk'd to thus. 
Yet will we say for children, would they grew 
Like field flowers everywhere! we like them well. 
But children die ; and let me tell you, girl, 
Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die ; 
They with the sun and moon renew their light 
Forever, blessing those that look on them. 

Children,— that men may pluck them from our hearts, 240 

Kill us with pity, break us with oui'selves,* — 

1 " Breathes full east," i.e., is of the character of the east wind, chilling 
and blasting tender shoots. 

2 Hoary; ancient. 3 " Might I dread," i.e., may I dare to say. 
4 " With ourselves," i.e., in our affection for our children. 



64 THE PRINCESS: [canto hi. 

O— children — there is nothing upon earth 

More miserable than she that has a son 

And sees him err. Nor would we work for fame ; 

Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause of Great,i 

Who learns the one pou sto ^ whence after hands 

May move the world, tho' she herself effect 

But little. Wherefore up and act, nor shrink 

For fear our solid aim be dissipated 

By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had been, 250 

In lieu of many mortal flies, a race 

Of giants, living each a thousand years. 

That we might see our own work out, and w^atch 

The sandy footprint harden into stone." 

I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself 
If that strange poet-princess with her grand 
Imaginations might at all be won. 
And she broke out interpreting my thoughts : 

" No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you ; 
We are us'd to that ; for women, up till this 260 

Cramp'd under worse than South-sea-isle taboo,^ 
Dwarfs of the gynaeceum,* fail so far 
In high desire, they know not — cannot guess 
How much their welfare is a passion to us. 
If we could give them surer, quicker proof — 
O if our end were less achievable 
By slow approaches than by single act 
Of immolation, any phase of death, 

1 Great discoverer, or great benefiter of mankind. 

2 " Pou sto," i.e., a place to stand on. " Give me," said Archimedes of 
Syracuse (287-212 B.C.), " where I may stand, and I will move the world." 

3 Restraint or exclusion ; among races of the South Pacific a system by 
which persons and things are placed under a ban or curse. 

4 Apartments in a Greek house set aside for the use of women. 



CANTO III.] A MEDLEY. 65 

We were as prompt to spring against the pikes, 

Or down the fiery gulf, as talk of it, 270 

To compass our dear sisters' hberties." 

She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear ; 
And up we came to where the river slop'd 
To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks 
A breadth of thunder. O'er it shook the woods, 
And danc'd the color,^ and, below, stuck out 
The bones of some vast bulk that liv'd and roar'd 
Before man was. She gaz'd awhile and said, 
" As these rude bones to us, are we to her 

That will be." " Dare we dream of that," I ask'd, 280 

*' Which wrought us, as the workman and his work. 
That practice betters? " 2 " How," she cried, "you love 
The metaphysics! read and earn our prize, 
A golden brooch : beneath an emerald plane 
Sits Diotima, teaching him that died 
Of hemlock ;^ our device ; wrought to the life ; 
She rapt upon her subject, he on her ; 
For there are schools for all." " And yet," I said, 
" Methinks I have not found among them all 
One anatomic." * " Nay, we thought of that," 290 

She answer'd, " but it pleas'd us not. In truth 
We shudder but to dream our maids should ape 
Those monstrous males that carve the living hound, 

1 The woods shook in the stirring air, and the rainbow of the falling 
water danced. 

2 Is it not impious to dream that the Creator who made us will improve his 
work by practice? 

3 The brooch contains a plane tree made of emerald, under which Diotima, 
a wise woman of Mantinea, is teaching Socrates. " The father of ethical 
philosophy" was condemned to death after defending himself on a charge of 
corrupting the youth of Athens and teaching of new gods, and drank hem- 
lock at the command of the state in 399 B.C. 

4 Of anatomy. 



66 THE PRINCESS: [caiNto in. 

And cram him with the fragments of the grave ;i 

Or in the dark dissolving human heart, 

And holy secrets of this microcosm,^ 

Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, 

Encarnalize ^ their spirits. Yet we know 

Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs. 

Howbeit ourself, foreseeing casualty, 300 

Nor willing men should come among us, learnt, 

For many weary moons before we came. 

This craft of healing. Were you sick, ourself 

Would tend upon you. To your question now, 

Which touches on the workman and his work. 

Let there be light, and there was light :* 'tis so; 

For was, and is, and will be, are but is;^ 

And all creation is one act at once, 

The birth of light. But we that are not all, 

As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, 310 

And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make 

One act a phantom of succession. Thus 

Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow. Time; 

But in the shadow will we work, and mold 

The woman to the fuller day." 

She spake 
With kindled eyes. We rode a league beyond. 
And, o'er a bridge of pine wood crossing, came 

1 The reference is to vivisection, and a rumor that dogs kept for such pur- 
pose were fed with fragments of dissected bodies. 

2 Little world ; applied to man as an epitome, physically and morally, of the 
great world. 

3 Make carnal ; sensualize. 4 See Gen. i. 3. 

5 "She becomes really profound," says Dawson, "in her analysis of 
our notions of creation as stages of successive acts. Our minds, she teaches, 
are so constituted that we must of necessity apprehend everything in the 
form and aspect of successive time ; but in the Almighty fiat, ' Let there 
be light,' the whole of the complex potentialities of the universe were in fact 
hidden." 



CANTO III.] A MEDLEY. 6 J 

On flowery levels underneath the crag, 

Full of all beauty. " O how sweet," I said 

(For I was half oblivious of my mask), 320 

" To linger here with one that lov'd us." " Yea," 

She answer'd, " or with fair philosophies 

That lift the fancy ; for indeed these fields 

Are lovely. Lovelier not the Elysian lawns,i 

Where pac'd the demigods ^ of old, and saw 

The soft white vapor streak the crowned towers 

Built to the sun ;"3 then, turning to her maids, 

*' Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward ; 

Lay out the viands." At the word, they rais'd 

A tent of satin, elaborately wrought 330 

With fair Corinna's * triumph ; here she stood, 

Engirt with many a florid maiden cheek. 

The woman conqueror ; woman-conquer'd there 

The bearded victor of ten thousand hymns, 

And all the men mourn'd at his side. But we 

Set forth to climb ; then, climbing, Cyril kept 

With Psyche, with Melissa Florian, I 

With mine afiianc'd. Many a httle hand 

Glanc'd like a touch of sunshine on the rocks, 

Many a light foot shone like a jewel set 340 

In the dark crag. And then we turn'd, we wound 

About the chffs, the copses, out and in. 

Hammering and cHnking, chattering stony names 

Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff, 

1 " Elysian lawns," i.e., lawns of Elysium, the abode of the blessed after 
death. 

2 Demigods were men who partook of divine nature either by descent from 
an immortal, or by gift of virtues. 

3 " Built to the sun," i.e., rising toward the sun; lofty. 

* Corinna, a Grecian poetess, is said to have won five prizes over the 
great Pindar (522-443 B.C.). He was " the bearded victor of ten thousand 
hymns," many of which have come down to us. 



68 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv. 

Amygdaloid and trachyte, ^ till the sun 

Grew broader toward his death, and fell, and all 

The rosy heights came out above the lawns. 



The splendor falls on castle walls 

And snowy summits old in story ; 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying; 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear. 

And thinner, clearer, farther going! 
O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying; 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O love, they die in yon rich sky. 

They faint on hill or field or river; 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul. 
And grow forever and forever. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.2 



CANTO IV. 



" There sinks the nebulous star we call the sun,^ 
If that hypothesis of theirs be sound," 
Said Ida; "let us dow^n and rest;" and we, 
Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices, 
By every coppice-feather'd chasm and cleft, 
Dropt thro' the ambrosial gloom to where below, 
No bigger than a glowworm, shone the tent, 
Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she lean'd on me, 

1 These names are of rocks of various natures and structures, and are used 
here in amused and playful irony. 

2 See Introduction, p. 14. 3 See Canto II. lines 101-104. 



CANTO IV.] A MEDLEY. 69 

Descending ; once or twice she lent her hand, 

And bhssful palpitations in the blood, 10 

Stirring a sudden transport, rose and fell. 

But when we planted level feet, and dipt 
Beneath the satin dome and enter'd in, 
There, leaning deep in broider'd down, we sank 
Our elbows ; on a tripod in the midst 
A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow'd 
Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and gold.^ 

Then she : " Let some one sing to us ; lightlier move 
The minutes fledg'd 2 with music ;" and a maid. 
Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang: 20 

" Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean; 
Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 
• In looking on the happy autumn fields, 

And thinking of the days that are no more. 

" Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, 
That brings our friends up from the under world,3 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge, — 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 3*^ 

" Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square, — 
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 

" Dear as remember'd kisses after death, 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd 
On lips that are for others ; deep as love. 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret, — 
O death in life, the days that are no more."* 4° 

1 Gold drinking cups and other table service. 2 Winged. 

3 " Under world," i.e., the world below the horizon. 
* See Introduction, p. 14. 



70 THE rniNCESS: [CANTO iv. 

She ended with such passion that the tear 
She sang of shook and fell, an erring ^ pearl 
Lost in her bosom. But with some disdain 
Answer'd the Princess : " If indeed there haunt 
About the molder'd lodges of the past 
So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men, 
Well needs it we should cram our ears with wool 2 
And so pace by. But thine are fancies hatch'd 
In silken-folded idleness ; nor is it 

Wiser to weep a true occasion lost, 50 

But trim our sails, and let old bygones be, 
While down the streams that float us each and all 
To the issue,^ goes, like glittering bergs of ice. 
Throne after throne, and molten on the waste 
Becomes a cloud. For all things serve their time 
Toward that great year of equal mights and rights ; 
Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end 
Found golden ; let the past be past ; let be 
Their cancel'd babels.'* Tho' the rough kex ^ break 
The starr'd mosaic, and the beard-blown ^ goat 60 

Hang on the shaft, and the wild fig tree '^ split 
Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear 
A trumpet in the distance pealing news 
Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, bums 
Above the unrisen morrow. Then to me : 
" Know you no song of your own land? " she said; 

1 Wandering. 

2 Tlie allusion is to the hero of the Odyssey, who stopped the ears of his 
comrades with wax that they might not be enchanted with the singing of 
the sirens. 

3 " To the issue," i.e., to the ultimate result ; end of life. 
^ Confusions ; disorders. 5 Hemlock. 

6 The reference is to " the wind blowing the beard on the height of the 
ruined pillar." 

■7 The wild fig has often been noticed springing in ruins and splitting the 
stones of the structure. 



CANTO IV.] A MEDLEY. 71 

" Not such as moans about the retrospect, 
But deals with the other distance and the hues 
Of promise ; not a death's head at the wine." 1 

Then I remember'd one myself had made, 70 

What time I watch'd the swallow winging south 
From mine own land, part made long since, and part 
Now while I sang ; and maidenlike as far 
As I could ape their treble, did I sing : 

" O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying south, 
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves. 
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee. 

*' O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, 
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, 
And dark and true and tender is the North. 80 

*' O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light 
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill. 
And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. 

" O were I thou that she might take me in. 
And lay me on her bosom, and her heart 
Would rock the snowy cradle till I died! 

" Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, 
Delaying as the tender ash delays 
To clothe herself when all the woods are green? 

" O tell her, Swallov/, that thy brood is flown. go 

Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, 
But in the North long since my nest is made. 

*' O tell her, brief is life but love is long, 
And brief the sun of summer in the North, 
And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 

1 It was the Egyptian custom, according to Herodotus, to carry the minia- 
ture image of a dead body, made as like as possible, to each person at a feast, 
with the exhortation to enjoy, for when he was dead he would be like this. 



72 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv. 

" O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, 
Fly to her, and pipe, and woo her, and make her mine, 
And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee." 1 

I ceas'd, and all the ladies, each at each, 
Like the Ithacensian suitors ^ in old time, loo 

Star'd with great eyes, and laugh'd with alien lips, 
And knew not what they meant ; for still my voice 
Rang false. But smihng, " Not for thee," she said, 
" O Bulbulj^ any rose of Guhstan * 
Shall burst her veil ; marsh divers,^ rather, maid, 
Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow crake ^ 
Grate her harsh kindred in the grass. And this 
A mere love poem! O for such, my friend, 
We hold them slight ; they mind us of the time 
When we made bricks in Egypt.'^ Knaves are men, no 

That lute and flute fantastic tenderness, 
And dress the victim to the off"ering up, 
And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, 
And play the slave to gain the tyranny. 
Poor soul ! I had a maid of honor once ; 
She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, 
A rogue of canzonets ^ and serenades. 

1 See Introduction, p. 14. 

2 During the years Ulysses was absent from Ithaca, his wife Penelope was 
beset by many suitors. At his return in disguise they laughed in a con- 
strained and nervous way (" with other men's jaws," says Homer) under the 
spell of Athena, vaguely conscious of the approaching disclosure and their 
fate. 

3 The Persian name for the nightingale. 
* Persian for rose garden. 

5 " Marsh divers," i.e., water rails. 

6 *' Meadow crake," i.e., the land rail or corncrake. Both this bird and 
the water rail have unmusical notes. 

■^ " They mind us," etc., i.e., they remind us of the time when in bondage, 
before a Moses came to lead us out, we, the chosen people, made bricks (see 
Exod. i. 8-14). 8 Short songs. 



CANTO IV.] A MEDLEY. 73 

I lov'd her. Peace be with her ; she is dead. 

So they blaspheme the muse! But great is song 

Us'd to great ends. Ourself have often tried 120 

Valkyrian hymns,i or into rhythm have dash'd 

The passion of the prophetess ; for song 

Is duer unto freedom, force and growth 

Of spirit, than to junketing and love. 

Love is it? Would this same mock love, and this 

Mock Hymen,2 were laid up like winter bats,^ 

Till all men grew to rate us at our worth, 

Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes 

To be dandled, — no, but living wills, and spher'd 

Whole in ourselves and ow'd to none."* Enough! 130 

But now to leaven play with profit, you. 

Know you no song, the true growth of your soil. 

That gives the manners of your countrywomen? " 

She spoke, and turn'd her sumptuous head with eyes 
Of shining expectation fixt on mine. 
Then, while I dragg'd my brains for such a song, 
Cyril, with whom the bell-mouth'd glass ^ had wrought, 
Or master'd by the sense of sport, began 
To troll a careless, careless ^ tavern catch 

Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences 140 

Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him, 

1 " Valkyrian hymns," i.e., such hymns as the Valkyrs sang. In Norse 
mythology the Valkyrs were handmaidens of Odin. They rode through the 
air to every battle, and with their spears pointed out the heroes who should 
fall. These they afterward led to Valhalla and ministered to them at banquets. 

2 Hymen was the Greek god of marriage. 

3 Bats sleep through the winter. 

4 " But living wills," etc., i.e., with wishes and powers like other human 
beings, rounded, complete in ourselves, and bound under obligations to no 
one. 

5 " Bell-mouth'd glass," i.e., wineglass. 
*5 Repeated for emphasis. 



74 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv. 

I frowning ; Psyche flush'd and wann'd ^ and shook ; 

The hlyhke MeHssa droop'd her brows. 

" Forbear," the Princess cried ; " Forbear, sir," I ; 

And, heated thro' and thro' with wrath and love, 

I smote him on the breast ; he started up ; 

There rose a shriek as of a city sack'd ; 

MeHssa clamor'd, "Flee the death;" "To horse," 

Said Ida; "home! to horse!" and fled, as flies 

A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk, 150 

When some one batters at the dovecot doors, 

Disorderly the women. Alone I stood 

With Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart. 

In the pavilion. There, like parting hopes, 

I heard them passing from me ; hoof by hoof. 

And every hoof a knell to my desires, 

Clang'd on the bridge ; and then another shriek, 

"The Head, the Head, the Princess, O the Head!" 

For blind with rage she miss'd the plank, and roll'd 

In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom. 160 

There whirl'd her white robe like a blossom'd branch 

Rapt 2 to the horrible fall. A glance I gave. 

No more, but, woman-vested as I was, 

Plung'd ; and the flood drew ; yet I caught her ; then 

Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left 

The weight of all the hopes of half the world,^ 

Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree 

Was half-disrooted from his place and stoop'd 

To drench his dark locks in the gurgling wave 

Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and caught, 170 

And grasping down the boughs I gain'd the shore. 

There stood her maidens glimmeringly group'd 
In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew 

1 Grew pale. 2 Seized and carried, 

i. This line is replete with irony and tenderness. 



CANTO IV.] A MEDLEY. 75 

My burden from mine arms ; they cried, ** She Hves! " 

They bore her back into the tent. But I, 

So much a kind of shame within me wrought, 

Not yet endur'd to meet her opening eyes, 

Nor found my friends ; but push'd alone on foot 

(For since her horse was lost I left her mine) 

Across the woods, and less from Indian craft ^ i8o 

Than beelike instinct hiveward,^ found at length 

The garden portals. Two great statues. Art 

And Science, caryatids,^ hfted up 

A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves^ 

Of openwork in which the hunter ^ rued 

His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows 

Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon 

Spread out at top, and grimly spik'd the gates. 

A little space was left between the horns. 
Thro' which I clamber'd o'er at top with pain, 190 

Dropt on the sward, and up the hnden walks, 
And, tost on thoughts that chang'd from hue to hue, 
Now poring on the glowworm, now the star, 
I pac'd the terrace, till the Bear ^ had wheel'd 
Thro' a great arc his seven slow suns. 

A step 
Of lightest echo, then a loftier form 
Than female, moving thro' the uncertain gloom, 
Disturb'd me with the doubt, " If this were she," 

1 The skill of the Indian in finding his way through untracked forests. 

2 " Beelike instinct hiveward," i.e., the instinct by which bees fly straight 
to their hive from a long distance. 

3 Figures of women draped in long robes, wdiich serve as columns to sup- 
port an entablature or other superincumbent weight. ^ Gates. 

5 Actaeon, a hunter, was, in the old myth, turned into a stag by Diana, 
having by accident come upon her and her nymphs while bathing. 

6 The Great Bear, Charles's Wain, the Dipper, are all names for this con- 
stellation, composed of seven stars near the North Star. 



^6 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv. 

But it was Florian. " Hist, O hist," he said, 

" They seek us ; out so late is out of rules. 200 

Moreover, ' Seize the strangers ' is the cry. 

How came you here? " I told him. " I," said he, 

" Last of the train, a moral leper,i I, 

To whom none spake, half sick at heart, return'd. 

Arriving all confus'd among the rest. 

With hooded brows I crept into the hall, 

And, couch'd behind a Judith,^ underneath 

The head of Holofernes peep'd and saw. 

Girl after girl was call'd to trial ; each 

Disclaim'd all knowledge of us. Last of all, 210 

Mehssa ; trust me, sir, I pitied her. 

She, question'd if she knew us men,^ at first 

Was silent ; closer prest, denied it not ; 

And then, demanded * if her mother knew, 

Or Psyche, she affirm'd not, or denied ; 

From whence the royal mind, familiar with her, 

Easily gather'd either guilt. She sent 

For Psyche, but she was not there ; she call'd 

For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors ; 

She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face; 220 

And I shpt out. But whither will you now? 

And where are Psyche? Cyril? both are fled. 

What if together? that were not so well. 

Would rather we had never come! I dread 

His wildness, and the chances of the dark." 

" And yet," I said, " you wrong him more than I 
That struck him. This is proper to the clown, 

1 " Moral leper, " i.e., one shunned and despised for his disguise and 
untruth. 

2 A statue of Judith, the woman who cut off the head of Holofernes, the 
chief captain of Nebuchadnezzar, as he slept in his tent (see Judith viii.-xvi). 

3 Supply " to be " before " men." * Being asked. 



CANTO IV.] A MEDLEY. 77 

Tho' smock'd, or furr'd and pui^led,^ still the clown, 

To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shame 

That which he says he loves. For ^ Cyril, howe'er 230 

He deal in frolic, as to-night, — the song 

Might have been worse and sinn'd in grosser lips 

Beyond all pardon, — as it is, I hold 

These flashes on the surface are not he. 

He has a solid base of temperament ; 

But as the water lily starts and slides 

Upon the level in little puiTs of wind, 

Tho' anchor'd to the bottom, such is he."^ 

Scarce had I ceas'd when from a tamarisk * near 
Two proctors leapt upon us, crying, " Names!" 240 

He, standing still, was clutch'd ; but I began 
To thrid the musky-circled mazes,^ wind 
And double in and out the boles,^ and race 
By all the fountains. Fleet I was of foot. 
Before me shower'd the rose in flakes ; behind 
I heard the puff'd '^ pursuer ; at mine ear 
Bubbled ^ the nightingale and heeded not ; 

1 " Proper to the clown," etc., i.e., characteristic of the clown, whether 
clad in laborer's smock or royal purple. 2 As for. 

^ In a letter to Mr. Dawson, Tennyson says this illustration was suggested 
to him from " water lilies in my own pond, seen on a gusty day. . . . They 
did start and slide in the sudden puffs of wind, till caught and stayed by the 
tether of their own stalks." 

4 A small tree of southern Europe and Asia, sometimes called flowering 
cypress. 

5 " Thrid," etc., i.e., thread the network of paths in the sweet-scented air. 

6 " Wind and double," etc., i.e., wind in and out among the tree trunks. 
"^ Breathing heavily from violent exertion. 

8 " Once Mr. Tennyson . . . heard a nightingale singing with such a 
frenzy of passion that it was unconscious of everything else, and not fright- 
ened, though he came and stood quite close beside it ; he could see its eye 
flashing and feel the air bubble in his ear through the vibration." — MRS. 
Anns Thackeray Ritchie. 



78 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv. 

And secret laughter tickled all niy soul. 

At last I hook'd my ankle in a vine, 

That claspt the feet of a Mnemosyne,^ 250 

And falhng on my face was caught and known. 

They haled - us to the Princess where she sat 
High in the hall. Above her droop'd a lamp, 
And made the single jewel on her brow 
Burn like the mystic fire ^ on a masthead, 
Prophet of storm. A handmaid on each side 
Bow'd toward her, combing out her long black hair 
Damp from the river ; and close behind her stood 
Eight daughters of the plow, stronger than men, 
Huge women blowz'd^ with health, and wind, and rain, 260 
And labor. Each was like a Druid rock ;^ 
Or like a spire of land that stands apart 
Cleft from the main, and wail'd about with mews.^ 

Then, as we came, the crowd dividing clove '^ 
An advent to the throne ; and therebeside. 
Half naked, as if caught at once from bed 
And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay 
The lily-shining child ; and on the left, 
Bow'd on her palms and folded up from wrong, 
Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs, 270 

Melissa knelt ; but Lady Blanche erect 
Stood up and spake, an affluent orator : 

1 The Greek goddess of memory, and mother of the Muses. 

2 Hauled. 

3 " Mystic fire," i.e., the appearance of electricity on the tip of a ship's 
mast, commonly called " St. Elmo's fire." 

4 Made ruddy and coarse-complexioned. 

5 Strong pillars of stone exist in England (as at Stonehenge), and are sup- 
posed to be the remnants of the Druid worship. 

6 " Cleft from the main," etc., i.e., cut off from the mainland and wailed 
about by sea gulls. '^ A past tense of cleave. 



CANTO IV.] A MEDLEY. 79 

" It was not thus, O Princess, in old days; 
You priz'd my counsel, liv'd upon my lips. 
I led you then to all the Castalies;i 
I fed you with the milk of every Muse ; 
I lov'd you like this kneeler, and you me, 
Your second mother. Those were gracious times. 
Then came your new friend ; you began to change, — 
I saw it and griev'd,— to slacken and to cool; 280 

Till, taken with her seeming openness, 
You turn'd your warmer currents all to her, 
To me you froze ; this was my meed for all. 
Yet I bore up, in part from ancient love, 
And partly that I hop'd to win you back, 
And partly conscious of my own deserts. 
And partly that you were my civil head, 
And chiefly you were born for something great, 
In which I might your fellow-worker be. 

When time should serve ; and thus a noble scheme 290 

Grew up from seed we two long since had sown ; 
In us true growth, in her a Jonah's gourd,^ 
Up in one night and due to sudden sun. 
We took this palace ; but even from th^ first 
You stood in your own light and darken'd mine. 
What student came but that you plan'd her path 
To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise, 
A foreigner, and I your countrywoman, 
I your old friend and tried, she new in all? 

But still her lists were swell'd and mine were lean; 300 

Yet I bore up in hope she would be known. 
Then came these wolves. They knew her ; they endur'd, 
Long closeted with her the yestermorn. 
To tell her what they were, and she to hear ; 
And me none told. Not less to an eye hke mine, 

1 Castaly, or Castalia, was the fountain on Parnassus sacred to the Muses. 
'^ See Jonah, iv. 



8o THE PRINCESS: [canto iv. 

A lidless ^ watcher of the pubUc weal, 

Last night their mask was patent, and my foot 

Was to you; 2 but I thought again; I fear'd 

To meet a cold ' We thank you, we shall hear of it 

From Lady Psyche.' You had^ gone to her, 310 

She told, perforce ; and winning easy grace. 

No doubt, for slight delay, remain'd among us 

In our young nursery * still unknown, the stem 

Less grain than touchwood ;^ while my honest heat 

Were all miscounted as malignant haste 

To push my rival out of place and power. 

But public use ^ requir'd she should be known ; 

And since my oath was ta'en for public use, 

I broke the letter of it to keep the sensed 

I spoke not then at first, but watch'd them well, 320 

Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done ; 

And yet this day (tho' you should hate me for it) 

I came to tell you ; found that you had gone, 

Ridd'n to the hills, she likewise. Now, I thought, 

That surely she will speak ; if not, then L 

Did she? These monsters blazon'd what they were, 

According to the coarseness of their kind. 

For thus I hear ; and known at last (my work), 

And full of cowardice and guilty shame, — 

I grant in her some sense of shame,— she flies; 330 

And I remain on whom to wreak your rage, 

I, that have lent my life to build up yours, 

1 Sleepless. 

2 " My foot was to you," i.e., I was about to go to you. 

3 Would have. 

* " Young nursery," i.e., nursery for young trees. 

5 Decayed wood, called touchwood from its burning like tinder. 

6 Good; welfare. 

■^ I.ady Blanche claims that she broke the exact promise of loyalty to keep 
the spirit, thinking that the lesson from Psyche's disloyalty would be the 
stronger from delay. 



CANTO IV.] A MEDLEY. 8i 

I, that have wasted here health, wealth, and time, 
And talent, I — you know it — I will not boast. 
Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan, 
Divorc'd from my experience, will be chaff 
For every gust of chance, and men will say 
We did not know the real light, but chas'd 
The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread." i 

She ceas'd; the Princess answer'd coldly, "Good; 340 

Your oath is broken. We dismiss you ; go. 
For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child) 
Our mind is chang'd ; we take it to ourself." 

Thereat the lady stretch'd a vulture throat, 
And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile. 
" The plan was mine. I built the nest," she said, 
"To hatch the cuckoo.-— Rise! " and stoop'd to updrag 
Melissa. She, half on her mother propt, 
Half drooping from her, turn'd her face, and cast 
A hquid look on Ida, full of prayer, 350 

Which melted Florian's fancy as she hung, 
A Niobean ^ daughter, one arm out, 
Appeahng to the bolts of Heaven ; and while 
We gaz'd upon her came a little stir 
About the doors, and on a sudden rush'd 
Among us, out of breath, as one pursu'd, 
A woman post in flying raiment. Fear 
Star'd in her eyes, and chalk'd ^ her face, and wing'd 

1 See Note 2, p. 20. 

2 The cuckoo does not build for itself, but lays its eggs in the nests of 
other birds, and leaves to the foster mother the task of rearing its young. 

3 Queen Niobe of Thebes, according to Greek legend, had twelve children, 
and boasted over Latona, \fho had but two. Thereupon these two, Apollo 
and Artemis, cast arrows from heaven and slew each of the twelve. Niobe 
herself was changed by Zeus into stone, and ever continued to weep for her sad 
fate. 4 Whitened ; made pale. 

6 



82 THE PRINCESS: [cANTO iv. 

Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell, 

Delivering seal'd dispatches which the Head 360 

Took half amaz'd, and in her lion's mood 

Tore open ; silent we with blind surmise 

Regarding, while she read, till over brow 

And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom 

As of some fire against a stormy cloud. 

When the wild peasant rights himself,^ the rick 

Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens ; 

For anger most it seem'd, while now her breast, 

Beaten with some great passion at her heart, 

Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard 370 

In the dead hush the papers that she held 

Rustle. At once the lost lamb at her feet 

Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam. 

The plaintive cry jarr'd on her ire ; she cnish'd 

The scrolls together, made a sudden turn 

As if to speak, but, utterance failing her, 

She whirl'd them on to me, as who ^ should say, 

" Read ;" and I read — two letters, one her sire's : 

" Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince your way 
We knew not your ungracious laws, which learnt, 380 

We, conscious of what temper you are built, 
Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell 

1 " And, indeed, in 1847, the state of the agricultural laborer, here [in The 
Princess] pictured on one day of holiday and feasting in the year, under the 
generosity of Sir Walter, 'a great, broad-shoulder 'd, genial Englishman,' was 
scarcely an inch better than it was in the year 1830, when all rural England 
was a cry of misery. One of the similes in The Princess is derived from the 
rick-burning into which the horrors of starvation and disease had driven the 
people. Of all this, Tennyson had either little conception, — only a few cared 
then, and he was of his time, — or he was absorbed in the glory of that Eng- 
lish country life in hall and park and comfortable farm, which he paints so 
well, as if that included more than a tenth of the rural population." — 
Stopford A. Brooke. 

2 One who. 



CANTO IV.] A MEDLEY. 83 

Into his father's hands, who has this night, 
You lying close upon his territory, 
Slipt round and in the dark invested you, 
And here he keeps me hostage for his son." 



The second was my father's, running thus : 
" You have our son ; touch not a hair of his head ; 
Render him up unscath'd ; give him your hand ; 
Cleave to your contract ; tho' indeed we hear 390 

You hold the woman is the better man ; ^ 
A rampant heresy, such as if it spread 
Would make all women kick against their lords 
Thro' all the world, and which might well deserve 
That we this night should pluck your palace down ; 
And we will do it, unless you send us back 
Our son, on the instant, whole." 

So far I read; 
And then stood up and spoke impetuously : 

" Oh, not to pry and peer on your reserve, 
But led by golden wishes, and a hope, 400 

The child of regal compact,^ did I break 
Your precinct ; not a scorner of your sex 
But venerator, zealous it should be 
All that it might be. Hear me, for I bear, 
Tho' man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs, 
From the flaxen curl to the gray lock, a life 
Less mine than yours. My nurse would tell me of you; 
I babbled for you, as babies for the moon, 

1 " The better man," i.e., the better of mankind. There is also humorous 
allusion to the simpler meaning of the word " man." 

2 " The child of regal compact," i.e., the offspring of the sacred vow of 
the two kings. A compact between kings is more sacred than one between 
other men, because of the divine authority with which they rule — was the 
old faith. 



84 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv. 

Vague brightness; ^ when a boy, you stoop'd to me 

From all high places, liv'd in all fair lights, 410 

Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south 

And blown to inmost north ; at eve and dawn 

With ' Ida, Ida, Ida,* rang the woods ; 

The leader 2 wild swan in among the stars 

Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of glowworm hght^ 

The mellow breaker murmur'd ' Ida.' Now, 

Because I would have reach'd you had you been 

Spher'd up with Cassiopeia,* or the enthron'd 

Persephone ^ in Hades, now at length, 

Those winters of abeyance^ all worn out, 420 

A man I came to see you. But, indeed, 

Not in this frequence ^ can I lend full tongue, 

O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait 

On you, their center. Let me say but this, 

That many a famous man and woman, town 

And landskip,^ have I heard of, after seen 

The dwarfs of presage;^ tho' when known, there grew 

Another kind of beauty in detail 

Made them worth knowing ; but in you I found 

My boyish dream involv'd and dazzled down 430 

And master'd, while that after beauty makes 

Such head from act to act, from hour to hour, 

1 "Vague brightness," i.e., brightness unknown and uncertain in char- 
acter, as the splendor of the moon to babies. 

2 The leader flies at the point of the V-shaped figure in which swans take 
their higher flights. 

3 " Glowworm light," i.e., the phosphorescent light of the sea. 

* In Greek myth an Ethiopian queen, who was taken to the skies and be- 
came the constellation which bears her name. 

» Persephone, or Proserpina, was snatched from the earth by Pluto, who 
made her his wife and queen of the lower world. 

6 " Winters of abeyance," i.e., long periods of suspense. 

7 Crowd; throng. 8 Landscape. 

9 " Dwarfs of presage," i.e., they were smaller than I conceived them to be. 



CANTO IV.] A MEDLEY. 85 

Within me, that except you slay me here, 

According to your bitter statute book, 

I cannot cease to follow you, as they say 

The seal does music ; 1 who desire you more 

Than growing boys their manhood ; dying lips, 

With many thousand matters left to do, 

The breath of life ; Oh, more than poor men wealth, 

Than sick men health, — yours, yours, not mine,— but half 440 

Without you, — with you, whole,— and of those halves 

You worthiest ; and howe'er you block and bar 

Your heart with system out from mine, I hold 

That it becomes no man to nurse despair, 

But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms 

To follow up the worthiest till he die. 

Yet that I came not all unauthoriz'd 

Behold your father's letter." 

On one knee 
Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dash'd 
Unopen'd at her feet. A tide of fierce • 450 

Invective seem'd to wait behind her lips, 
As waits a river level with the dam, 
Ready to burst and flood the world with foam. 
And so she would have spoken, but there rose 
A hubbub in the court ^ of half the maids 
Gather'd together. From the illumin'd hall 
Long lanes of splendor slanted o'er a press 
Of snowy shoulders thick as herded ewes, 
And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes, 
And gold and golden heads. They to and fro 460 

Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale, 
All open-mouth'd, all gazing to the light, 
Some crying there was an army in the land. 
And some that men were in the very walls, 

1 Many stories are told of seals being attracted by, and following, music. 

2 The court adjoined the hall in which the Princess sat. 



86 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv. 

And some they car'd not ; till a clamor grew 
As of a new-world Babel, woman-built, 
And worse confounded. High above them stood 
The placid marble Muses, looking peace. 

Not peace she look'd, the Head ; but rising up, 
Rob'd in the long night of her deep hair, so 470 

To the open window mov'd, remaining there ^ 

Fixt like a beacon tower above the waves 
Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye ^ 
Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light 
Dash themselves dead. She stretch'd her arms and call'd 
Across the tumult, and the tumult fell : 

"What fear ye, brawlers? am not I your Head ? 
On me, me, me, the storm first breaks; /dare 
All these male thunderbolts ; what is it ye fear ? 
Peace! there are those ^ to avenge us, and they come. 480 

If not, — myself were like enough, O girls. 
To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights. 
And clad in iron burst the ranks of war, 
Or, falling, protomartyr ^ of our cause. 
Die. Yet I blame you not so much for fear ; 
Six thousand years of fear have made you that 
From which I would redeem you. But for those 
That stir this hubbub — you and j^ou — I know 
Your faces there in the crowd — to-morrow mom 
We hold a great convention ; then shall they 490 

That love their voices more than duty, learn 
With whom they deal, dismiss'd in shame to live 
No wiser than their mothers, household stuff, 
Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame, 

1 " Crimson-rolling eye," i.e., the revolving light of the beacon. Birds, 
drawn by the light, dash themselves against the glass and are killed. 

2 Brothers of the Princess. 3 The first martyr or witness. 



CANTO IV.] • A MEDLEY. 87 

Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown, 

The drunkard's football, laughingstocks of Time, 

Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, 

But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, 

To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour, 

Forever slaves at home and fools abroad." 500 

She, ending, wav'd her hands ; thereat the crowd. 
Muttering, dissolv'd. Then with a smile, that look'd 
A stroke of cruel ^ sunshine on the cliff. 
When all the glens are drown' d in azure gloom 
Of thundershower, she floated to us and said : 

" You have done well and Hke a gentleman, 
And like a prince ; you have our thanks for all. 
And you look well too in your woman's dress ; 
Well have you done and like a gentleman. 

You sav'd our hfe ; we owe you bitter thanks. 510 

Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood ; 
Then men had said — but now — What hinders me 
To take such bloody vengeance on you both? — 
Yet since our father — Wasps in our good hive, 
You would-be quenchers of the light to be, • 
Barbarians, grosser than your native bears ^ — 
Oh, would I had his scepter for one hour! 
You that have dar'd to break our bound, and gull'd 
Our servants, wrong'd and lied and thwarted us — 
/wed with thee! /bound by precontract 520 

Your bride, your bond slave ! Not tho' all the gold 
That veins the world were pack'd to make your crown, 
And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir, 
Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us ; 
I trample on your offers and on you. 
Begone; we will not look upon you more. — 

1 Cruel because all below is dark and stormdriven. 

2 " Your native bears," i.e., the bears of the north of Europe. 



88 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv. 

Here, push them out at gates." 

In wrath she spake. 
Then those eight mighty daughters of the plow 
Bent their broad faces toward us, and address'd i 
Their motion. Twice I sought to plead my cause, 530 

But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands, 
The weight of destiny ; so from her face 
They push'd us, down the steps, and thro' the court, 
And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates. 

We cross'd the street and gain'd a petty mound 
Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard 
The voices murmuring. While I hsten'd, came 
On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt. 
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts ; 
The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard, 540 

The jest and earnest working side by side. 
The cataract and the tumult and the kings 
Were shadows ; and the long fantastic night 
With all its doings had and had not been. 
And all things were and were not. 

This went by 
As strangely as it came, and on my spirits 
Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy. 
Not long ; I shook it off ; for spite of doubts 
And sudden ghostly shadowings, I was one 
To whom the touch of all mischance but came 550 

As night to him that, sitting on a hill, 
Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun 
Set into sunrise.^ Then we mov'd away. 

1 Directed ; turned. 

2 Upon the Arctic circle the sun does not set on midsummer day, June 22, 
but remains above the horizon for twenty-four hours. Norway stands for the 
Northern country, because it is along its shores that travelers commonly coast 
to witness the midnicfht sun, 



INTERLUDE.] A MEDLEY. ^^ 



INTERLUDE. 

Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, 

That beat to battle where he stands ; 
Thy face across his fancy comes, 

And gives the battle to his hands. 
A moment, while the trumpets blow, 

He sees his brood about thy knee; 
The next, like fire he meets the foe, 

And strikes him dead for thine and thee. 

So Lilia sang ; we thought her half possess'd,! 

She struck such warbhng fury thro' the words ; i o 

And, after, feigning pique at what she call'd 

The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime, — 

Like one that wishes at a dance to change 

The music,— clapt her hands and cried for war, 

Or some grand fight to kill and make an end. 

And he that next inherited the tale 

Half turning to the broken statue, said, 

" Sir Ralph has got your colors ; if I prove 

Your knight, and fight your battle, what for me ? " 

It chanc'd her empty glove upon the tomb 20 

Lay by her Hke a model of her hand. 

She took it and she flung it. " Fight," she said, 

" And make us all we would be, great and good." 

He, knightlike in his cap instead of casque, 

A cap of Tyrol 2 borrow'd from the hall, 

Arrang'd the favor, and assum'd the Prince. 

1 With an evil spirit. 

2 The Tyrolese, who live in the Alps south of Bavaria, wear gay-colored 
caps. 



90 THE PRINCESS: [canto v. 



CANTO V. 

Now, scarce three paces measur'd from the mound, 

We stumbled on a stationary voice,i 

And, " Stand, who goes ? " "Two from the palace," I. 

''The second two;- they wait," he said, "pass on; 

His Highness wakes." And one, that clash'd in arms, 

By ghmmering lanes and walls of canvas led 

Threading the soldier-city, till we heard 

The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake 

From blazon'd hons o'er the imperial tent 

Whispers of war. 

Entering, the sudden light lo 

Daz'd me half blind. I stood and seem'd to hear, 
As in a poplar grove when a light wind wakes 
A lisping of the innumerous ^ leaf, and dies, 
Each hissing in his neighbor's ear ; and then 
A strangled titter, out of which there brake 
On all sides, clamoring etiquette to death, 
Unmeasur'd mirth ; while now the two old kings 
Began to wag their baldness up and down, 
The fresh young captains flash'd their glittering teeth, 
The huge bush-bearded barons heav'd and blew, 20 

And slain with laughter roU'd the gilded squire. 

At length my sire, his rough cheek wet with tears, 
Panted from weary sides, " King, you are free! 

1 " Stationary voice," i.e., the voice of a sentinel. 

2 Cyril and Psyche had already come, 

3 Innumerable, 



CANTO v.] A MEDLEY. gi 

We did but keep you surety for our son, 

If this be he, — or a draggled mawkin,i thou, 

That tends her bristled grunters in the sludge ; " 

For I was drench'd with ooze, and torn with briers, 

More crumpled than a poppy from the sheath,^ 

And all one rag, disprinc'd from head to heel. 

Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm 30 

A whisper'd jest to some one near him, " Look, 

He has been among his shadows." " Satan take 

The old women and their shadows 1 " — thus the king 

Roar'd — " Make yourself a man to fight with men. 

Go ; Cyril told us all." 

As boys that slink 
From ferule and the trespass-chiding eye, 

Away we stole, and transient ^ in a trice 

From what was left of faded woman-slough * 

To sheathing splendors and the golden scale 

Of harness, issu'd in the sun, that now 40 

Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth, 

And hit the northern hills. Here Cyril met us, 

A little shy at first, but by and by 

We twain, with mutual pardon ask'd and given 

For stroke and song, resolder'd ^ peace, whereon 

Follow'd his tale. Amaz'd he fled away 

Thro' the dark land, and later in the night 

Had come on Psyche weeping. " Then we fell 

Into your father's hand, and there she lies, 

But will not speak, nor stir." 

He show'd a tent 50 

1 A slattern who tends pigs in the mire. 

2 The silky petals of the poppy are limp and crumpled when the sepals 
fall apart. 3 Passing. 

4 While slough means properly the skin of a serpent, it may refer to any 
part that is shed or molted, as here, of clothing. 
6 Soldered again ; made whole again. 



92 THE PRINCESS: [canto v. 

A stone-shot off. We enter'd in, and there 

Among pil'd arms and rough accouterments, 

Pitiful sight, wrapp'd in a soldier's cloak. 

Like some sweet sculpture drap'd from head to foot, 

And push'd by rude hands from its pedestal, 

All her fair length upon the ground she lay ; 

And at her head a follower of the camp, 

A charr'd and wrinkled piece of womanhood, 

Sat watching like a watcher by the dead. 

Then Florian knelt, and " Come," he whisper'd to her, 60 
" Lift up your head, sweet sister ; He not thus. 
What have you done but right? You could not slay 
Me, nor your Prince. Look up ; be comforted. 
Sweet is it to have done the thing one ought, 
When fall'n in darker ways." And likewise I : 
" Be comforted ; have I not lost her too. 
In whose least act abides the nameless charm 
That none has else for me ? " She heard, she mov'd. 
She moan'd, a folded voice •} and up she sat, 
And rais'd the cloak from brows as pale and smooth 70 

As those that mourn half shrouded over death 
In deatliless marble.^ " Her," she said, " my friend — 
Parted from her— betray'd her cause and mine- 
Where shall I breathe? why kept ye not your faith ?3 
O base and bad! what comfort? none for me!" 
To whom remorseful Cyril, " Yet I pray 
Take comfort; hve, dear lady, for your child!" 
At which she lifted up her voice and cried : 

"Ah me, my babe, my blossom! ah, my child, 
My one sweet child, whom I shall see no more! 80 

1 " A folded voice," i.e., a voice from the midst of folds. 

2 Referring to the marble sculpture of monuments ; the ' ' deathless marble " 
of Michael Angelo's Pieta, in Rome, has been suggested. 

3 Promise to leave the coIle<Te soon. 



CANTO v.] A MEDLEY. 93 

For now will cruel Ida keep her back ; 

And either she will die from want of care, 

Or sicken with ill usage, when they say 

'The child is hers ' ^ — for every little fault, 

* The child is hers ' ; and they will beat my girl. 

Remembering her mother. O my flower! 

Or they will take her, they will make her hard. 

And she will pass me by in after life 

With some cold reverence worse than were she dead. 

Ill 2 mother that I was to leave her there, 90 

To lag behind, scar'd by the cry they made, 

The horror of the shame among them all. 

But I will go and sit beside the doors. 

And make a wild petition night and day, 

Until they hate to hear me like a wind 

Wailing forever, till they open to me. 

And lay my httle blossom at my feet. 

My babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child! 

And I will take her up and go my way, 

And satisfy my soul with kissing her. 100 

Ah! what might that man not deserve of me 

Who gave me back my child! " " Be comforted," 

Said Cyril, " you shall have it." But again 

She veil'd her brows, and prone she sank, and so 

Like tender things that being caught feign death. 

Spoke not, nor stirr'd. 

By this a murmur ran 
Thro' all the camp, and inward rac'd the scouts 
With rumor of Prince Arac ^ hard at hand. 
We left her by the woman, and without 
Found the gray kings at parle \^ and " Look you," cried no 

1 Psyche's. 

2 Evil ; wicked. 

3 See Canto I. line 152. 

4 " At parle," i.e., in parley; conference. 



94 THE PRINCESS: [canto v. 

My father, " that our compact be fulfiU'd. 

You have spoilt this child ; she laughs at you and man ; 

She wrongs herself, her sex, and me, and him. 

But red-fac'd war has rods of steel and fire ; 

She yields, or war." 

Then Gama turn'd to me : 
" We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time 
With our strange girl ; and yet they say that still 
You love her. Give us, then, your mind at large ; 
How say you, v^^ar or not? " 

" Not war, if possible, 
O king," I said, "lest from the abuse of war, 120 

The desecrated shrine, the trampled year,i 
The smoldering homestead, and the household flower 
Torn from the lintel,^ — all the common wrong, 
A smoke go up thro' which I loom to her 
Three times a monster. Now she lightens scorn ^ 
At him that mars her plan, but then would hate 
(And every voice she talk'd with ratify it. 
And every face she look'd on justify it) 
The general foe. More soluble is this knot 
By gentleness than war. I want her love. 130 

What were I nigher this altho' we dash'd 
Your cities into shards* with catapults?^ 
She would not love ; — or brought her chain'd, a slave, 
The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord ? 
Not ever would she love ; but brooding turn 
The book of scorn, till all my flitting chance 

1 Harvest. 

2 The horizontal timber or stone resting on the jamb of the door ; it stands 
here for house, household, family life. The phrase, " household flower torn 
from the lintel," means the loss by violence of some member of the family. 

3 <' Lightens scorn," i.e., flashes scorn, as lightning, from her eyes. 

4 Fragments. 

5 Military engines used to throw huge darts and stones and other missiles 
against walled towns and towers. 



CANTO v.] A MEDLEY. 95 

Were caught within the record of her wrongs, 

And crush'd to death. And rather, sire, than this 

I would the old god of war himself were dead, 

Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills, 140 

Rotting on some wild shore with ribs of wreck, 

Or like an old-world mammoth bulk'd in ice,i 

Not to be molten out." 

And roughly spake 
My father : " Tut, you know them not, the girls. 
Boy, when I hear you prate I almost think 
That idiot legend ^ credible. Look you, sir! 
Man is the hunter ; woman is his game. 
The sleek and shining creatures of the chase, 
We hunt them for the beauty of their skins ; 
They love us for it, and we ride them down. 150 

WheedHng and siding with them! Out! for shame! 
Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them 
As he that does the thing they dare not do. 
Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes 
With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in 
Among the women, snares them by the score 
Flatter'd and fluster'd, wins, tho' dash'd with death 
He reddens what he kisses. Thus I won 
Your mother, a good mother, a good wife, 

Worth winning; but this firebrand — gentleness 160 

To such as her! if Cyril spake her true, 
To catch a dragon in a cherry net,^ 
To trip a tigress with a gossamer. 
Were wisdom to it." 

1 " With ribs of wreck," etc., i.e., like a wrecked ship, the ribs of which 
remain long after the lighter parts are fallen away ; or like the mammoth, the 
huge elephant of former geologic age, still found embedded (" bulk'd") in 
the ice banks of Siberia. 

2 The legend of the sorcerer (see Canto I. line 5). 

2 " Cherry net," i.e., a net to protect cherries from the birds. 



96 THE PRINCESS: [canto v. 

" Yea, but sire," I cried, 
" Wild natures need wise curbs. The soldier ? No ; 
What dares not Ida do that she should prize 
The soldier? I beheld her, when she rose 
The yesternight, and storming in extremes 
Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down 
Gagelike ^ to man, and had not shunn'd the death,— 170 

No, not the soldier's. Yet I hold her, king. 
True woman ; but you clash them all in one,^ 
That have as many differences as we. 
The violet varies from the lily as far 
As oak from elm. One loves the soldier, one 
The silken priest of peace, one this, one that, 
And some unworthily ; their sinless faith, 
A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty,^ 
Glorifying clown and satyr ; whence they need 
More breadth of culture. Is not Ida right ? 180 

They worth it ? truer to the law within ? * 
Severer in the logic of a hfe? ^ 
Twice as magnetic ^ to sweet influences 
Of earth and heaven? And she of whom you speak, 
My mother, looks as whole '^ as some serene 
Creation minted in the golden moods 
Of sovereign artists ; not a thought, a touch, 
But pure as lines of green that streak the white 
Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves ; I say, 

1 Like a challenge to combat. In the days of chivalry it was customary 
for the challenger to cast on the ground a glove or gauntlet. He who took it 
up accepted the challenge. 

2 " Clash them," etc., i.e., bunch them roughly all in one. 

3 " Maiden moon," etc., i.e., the pure moon, that shines upon the meanest 
thing. 

4 The "law within" is the conscience; the moral sense; the sense of 
right and wrong. 

5 " Logic of a life," i.e., devotion to principle. 

6 Susceptible. 7 Complete. 



CANTO v.] A MEDLEY. 97 

Not like the piebald miscellany, man, igo 

Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire, 

But whole and one ; and take them all in all, 

Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind, 

As truthful, much that Ida claims as right 

Had ne'er been mooted, but as frankly theirs 

As dues of Nature. To our point : not war. 

Lest I lose all." 

*' Nay, nay, you spake but sense," 
Said Gama. " We remember love ourself 
In our sweet youth ; we did not rate him then 
This red-hot iron to be shap'd with blows. 200 

You talk almost like Ida ; she can talk ; 
And there is something in it as you say. 
But you talk kindlier; we esteem you for it. — 
He seems a gracious and a gallant prince, 
I would he had our daughter. For the rest, 
Our own detention, why, the causes weigh'd, 
Fatherly fears ^ — you us'd us courteously — 
We would do much to gratify your Prince — 
We pardon it ; and for your ingress here 

Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land, 210 

You did but come as goblins in the night. 
Nor in the furrow broke the plowman's head, 
Nor burnt the grange, nor buss'd the milking-maid, 
Nor robb'd the farmer of his bowl of cream. 
But let your Prince (our royal word upon it 
He comes back safe) ride with us to our lines, 
And speak with Arac. Arac's word is thrice 
As ours with Ida.^ Something may be done — 
I know not what — and ours shall see us friends. — 
You, likewise, our late guests, if so you will, 220 

1 " Our own detention," etc., i.e., we pardon our own detention, since the 
occasion of it was fatherly fears. 

2 " Is thrice," etc., i.e., has three times the force of ours with Ida. 



98 THE PRINCESS: [canto v. 

Follow US. Who knows? we four may build some plan 
Foursquare to opposition." 

Here he reach'd 
White hands of farewell to my sire, who growl'd 
An answer wliich, half muffled in his beard, 
Let so much out as gave us leave to go. 

Then rode we with the old king across the lawns, 
Beneath huge trees, a thousand rings ^ of spring 
In every bole, a song on every spray. 
Of birds that pip'd their valentines,- and woke 
Desire in me to infuse my tale of love 230 

In the old king's ears, who promis'd help, and ooz'd 
All o'er with honey'd answer as we rode ; 
And blossom fragrant slipt the heavy dews 
Gather'd by night and peace, with each light air 
On our mail'd heads. But other thoughts than peace 
Burnt in us, when we saw the embattled ^ squares 
And squadrons of the Prince, trampling the flowers 
With clamor ; for among them rose a cry 
As if to greet the king ; they made a halt ; 

The horses yell'd ; they clash'd their arms ; the drum 540 

Beat ; merrily blowing shrill'd the martial fife ; 
And' in the blast and bray of the long horn 
And serpent-throated bugle, undulated 
The banner. Anon to meet us lightly pranc'd 
Three captains out ; nor ever had I seen 
Such thews of men. The midmost and the highest * 
Was Arac ; all about his motion clung 
The shadow of his sister, as the beam 
Of the East, that play'd upon them, made them glance 

1 Some trees add with every year of life a ring, or layer, of wood to the 
trunk. 

2 Love songs. 3 Prepared for battle. 
4 Tallest. 



CANTO v.] A MEDLEY. 99 

Like those three stars of the airy Giant's zone,i 250 

That ghtter burnish'd by the frosty dark ; 

And as the fiery Sirius ^ alters hue, 

And bickers into red and emerald, shone 

Their morians,^ wash'd with morning, as they came. 

And I that prated peace, when first I heard 
War music, felt the blind wild beast of force, 
Whose home is in the sinews of a man. 
Stir in me as to strike. Then took the king 
His three broad sons ; with now a wandering hand 
And now a pointed finger, told them all. 260 

A common light of smiles at our disguise 
Broke from their lips ; and, ere the windy jest 
Had labor'd down within his ample lungs. 
The genial giant, Arac, roU'd himself 
Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words : 

" Our land invaded, 'sdeath!* and he himself 
Your captive, yet my father wills not war ; 
And, 'sdeath! myself, what care I, war or no? 
But then this question of your troth remains ; 
And there's a downright honest meaning in her. 270 

She flies too high, she flies too high! and yet 
She ask'd but space and fair play for her scheme. 
She prest and prest it on me — I myself. 
What know I of these things ? but, Hfe and soul! 
I thought her half right talking of her wrongs. 
I say she. flies too high, 'sdeath! what of that? 
I take her for the flower of womankind, 

1 "Those three stars," etc., i.e., the three stars in the belt of Orion, a 
mighty hunter of Greece, whom legend transferred to the skies. The con- 
stellation is brightest in winter. 

2 The white Dog Star, which, low down in the sky, shines or flashes (" bick- 
ers ") in other colors. 

3 Helmets. ■* A.n abbreviation of " God's death.'' 



lOO THE PRINCESS: [canto v. 

And so I often told her, right or wrong. 

And, Prince, she can be sweet to those she loves; 

And, right or wrong, I care not; this is all: 280 

I stand upon her side ; she made me swear it — 

'Sdeath — and with solemn rites by candlelight ^ — 

Swear by St. something — I forget her name — 

Her that talk'd down the fifty wisest men ; 2 

She was a princess too ; and so I swore. 

Come, this is all ; she will not ; waive your claim. 

If not, the foughten ^ field, what else, at once 

Decides it, 'sdeath! against my father's will." 

I lagg'd in answer, loath to render up 
My precontract, and loath by brainless war 290 

To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet ; 
Till one of those two brothers, half aside, 
And fingering at the hair about his lip, 
To prick us on to combat: " Like to like! 
The woman's garment hid the woman's heart," — 
A taunt that clench'd his purpose Hke a blow! 
For fiery short was Cyril's counter-scoff,* 
And sharp I answer'd, touch'd upon the point ^ 
Where idle boys are cowards to their shame : 
" Decide it here ; why not? we are three to three." 300 

Then spake the third : " But three to three? no more ? 
No more, and in our noble sister's cause ? 
More, more, for honor! Every captain waits . 
Hungry for honor, angry for his king. 

1 " By candlelight," i.e., by the candlelight of the church. 

2 The reference is to St. Catherine of Alexandria. There is a legend that 
she confuted and converted to Christianity fifty wise men, whom a Roman 
emperor of the fourth century sent to dispute with her. 

3 An old form of " fought." 

4 Taunt in return. 

5 The moral courage to stand fast by calmer judgment. 



CANTO v.] A MEDLEY. loi 

More, more, some fifty on a side! that each 
May breathe himself, and quick, by overthrow 
Of these or those, the question settled, die." 

" Yea," answer'd I, "for this wild wreath of air, 
This flake of rainbow flying on the highest 

Foam of men's deeds, — this honor, if ye will! 310 

It needs must be for honor if at all ; 
Since, what decision ? If we fail, we fail, 
And if we win, we fail ; she would not keep 
Her compact." " 'Sdeath! but we will send to her," 
Said Arac, " worthy reasons why she should 
Bide by this issue ; let our missive thro'. 
And you shall have her answer by the word.^' 

" Boys! " shriek'd the old king, but vainlier than a hen 
To her false daughters in the pool ;i for none 
Regarded, neither seem'd there more to say. 320 

Back ] ode we to my father's camp, and found 
He thrice had sent a herald to the gates. 
To learn if Ida yet would cede our claim, 
Or by denial flush ^ her babbling wells 
With her own people's Hfe. Three times he went. 
The first, he blew and blew, but none appear'd ; 
He batter'd at the doors; none came. The next. 
An awful voice within had warn'd him thence. 
The third, and those eight daughters of the plow 
Came sallying thro' the gates, and caught his hair, 330 

And so belabor'd him on rib and cheek 
They made him wild. Not less one glance he caught 
Thro' open doors of Ida station'd there 
Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm 
Tho' compass'd by two armies and the noise 

1 " Her false daughters," etc., i.e., the ducklings which she has hatched. 

2 Means both to fill or drench copiously, and to redden. 



102 THE PRINCESS: [canto v. 

Of arms ; and standing like a stately pine 

Set in a cataract on an island crag,i 

When storm is on the heights, and right and left, 

Suck'd from the dark heart of the long hills, roll 

The torrents, dash'd to the vale ; and yet her will 340 

Bred will in me to overcome it or fall. 

But when I told the king that I was pledg'd 
To fight in tourney ^ for my bride, he clash'd 
His iron palms together with a cry ; 
Himself would tilt it out among the lads ; 
But overborne by all his bearded lords 
With reasons drawn from age and state, perforce 
He yielded, wroth and red, with fierce demur. 
And many a bold knight started up in heat, 
And sware to combat for my claim till death. 350 

All on this side the palace ran the field 
Flat to the garden wall ; and likewise here, 
Above the garden's glowing blossom belts, 
A column'd entry shone, and marble stairs, 
And great bronze valves, emboss'd with Tomyris^ 
And what she did to Cyrus after fight. 
But now fast barr'd. So here upon the flat 

1 " I have been out for a walk with A. T.," wrote Arthur Hugh Clough 
in September, 186 1, " to a sort of island between two waterfalls, with pines 
on it, of which he retained a recollection from his visit of thirty-one years ago, 
and which, moreover, furnished a simile to The Princess. He is very fond 
of this place, evidently." 

2 A contest of a number of champions, with sword, mace, heavy-headed 
staff, or other weapon. 

3 The Queen of tlie Massagetse, a people who lived on plains east of the 
Caspian, and against whom Cyrus carried war in the sixth century B.C. 
Having conquered and slain the king, Tomyris put his head in a leather sack 
of blood, in fulfillment of her promise that he should have blood enough if he 
warred with her. 



CANTO v.] A MEDLEY, 103 

All that long morn the lists 1 were hammer'd up, 

And all that morn the heralds to and fro, 

With message and defiance, went and came ; 360 

Last, Ida's answer, in a royal hand, 

But shaken here and there, and rolling words 

Orationlike. I kiss'd it and I read : 

" O brother, you have known the pangs we felt, 
What heats of indignation, when we heard 
Of those that iron-cramp'd their women's feet ; 
Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride 
Gives her harsh groom for bridal gift a scourge ;2 
Of living hearts that crack within the fire 

Where smolder their dead despots;^ and of those — 370 

Mothers — that, all prophetic pity, fling 
Their pretty maids in the running flood,* and swoops 
The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart 
Made for all noble motion.^ And I saw 
That equal baseness Hv'd in sleeker times 
With smoother men ; the old leaven leaven'd all ; 
Millions of throats would bawl for civil rights. 
No woman nam'd. Therefore I set my face 
Against all men, and liv'd but for mine own. 
Far off from men I built a fold for them ; 380 

I stor'd it full of rich memorial, 
I fenc'd it round with gallant institutes, 
And biting laws to scare the beasts of prey, 

1 The barriers inclosing the field of battle at a tournament. 

'^ In Russia a bride formerly presented her husband with a whip. 

3 Suttee; the practice by which a Hindu widow burned herself upon the 
funeral pile of her dead husband, or separately if he died at a distance. It 
was abolished in British India in 1829. 

* Hindu mothers threw their girl babies into the Ganges, to save them 
from the unhappy life which was the lot of all women in India. Vultures 
hovering near by were sometimes seen to pick up the bodies before they sank. 

5 Emotion, 



I04 THE PRINCESS: [canto v. 

And prosper'd ; till a rout of saucy boys 

Brake on us at our books, and marr'd our peace, 

Mask'd like our maids, blustering I know not what 

Of insolence and love, some pretext held 

Of baby troth, invalid, since my will 

Seal'd not the bond— the striplings! —for their sport! — 

I tam'd my leopards; shall I not. tame these? 390 

Or you ? or I ? For since you think me touch'd 

In honor — what! I would not aught of false — 

Is not our cause pure? And whereas I know 

Your prowess, Arac, and what mother's blood 

You draw from, fight ; you failing, I abide 

What end soever ; fail you will not. Still, 

Take not his life ; he risk'd it for my own ; 

His mother lives ; yet whatsoe'er you do, 

Fight and fight well ; strike and strike home. O dear 

Brothers, the woman's angel guards you, you 400 

The sole men to be mingled with our cause, 

The sole men we shall prize in the after time, 

Your very armor hallow'd, and your statues 

Rear'd, sung to, when, this gadfly brush'd aside, 

We plant a solid foot into the time. 

And mold a generation strong to move 

With claim on claim from right to right, till she 

Whose name is yok'd with children's,^ know herself ; 

And Knowledge in our own land make her free, 

And, ever following those two crowned twins, 410 

Commerce and Conquest, shower the fiery grain 

Of freedom broadcast over all that orbs 

Between the northern and the southern morn." 

Then came a postscript dash'd across the rest : 
" See that there be no traitors in your camp. 
We seem a nest of traitors— none to trust 

1 In the common phrase, " women and childrent'* 



CANTO v.] A MEDLEY. • 105 

Since our arms fail'd — this Egypt-plague of men!i 

Almost our maids were better at their homes 

Than thus man-girdled here. Indeed I think 

Our chiefest comfort is the little child 420 

Of one unworthy mother, which she left. 

She shall not have it back ; the child shall grow 

To prize the authentic mother of her mind.^ 

I took it for an hour in mine own bed 

This morning ; there the tender orphan hands 

Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from thence 

The wrath I nurs'd against the world. Farewell." 

I ceas'd ; he said, " Stubborn, but she may sit 
Upon a king's right hand in thunderstorms. 
And breed up warriors! See now, tho' yourself 430 

Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs 
That swallow common sense, the spindling king, 
This Gama swamp'd in lazy tolerance! 
When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up, 
And topples down the scales ; but this is fixt 
As are the roots of earth and base of all : 
Man for the field and woman for the hearth ; 
Man for the sword and for the needle she ; 
Man with the head and woman with the heart ; 
Man to command and woman to obey ; 440 

All else confusion. Look you! the gray mare 
Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills 
From tile to scullery ;3 and her small goodman 
Shrinks in his armchair, while the fires of hell 
Mix with his hearth.* But you — she's yet a colt — 
Take, break her. Strongly groom'd and straitly curbed, 

1 See Exod. viii-x. 

2 When Ida shall have reared her to her views. 

8 " From tile to scullery," i.e., from tile roof to back kitchen. 
* Discord is in his house. 



lo6 THE PRINCESS: [canto v. 

She might not rank with those detestable i 

That let the bantling 2 scald at home, and brawl 

Their rights or wrongs like potherbs ^ in the street. 

They say she's comely ; there's the fairer chance. 450 

/ like her none the less for rating at her! 

Besides, the woman wed is not as we. 

But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace 

Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy, 

The bearing and the training of a child 

Is woman's wisdom." 

Thus the hard old king. 
I took my leave, for it was nearly noon, 
I por'd upon her letter which I held. 
And on the little clause, " Take not his life ;" 
I mus'd on that wild morning in the woods, 460 

And on the " Follow, follow, thou shalt win;"* 
I thought on all the wrathful king had said, 
And how the strange betrothment was to end. 
Then I remember'd that burnt sorcerer's curse 
That one should fight with shadows and should fall; 
And hke a flash the weird affection came : 
King, camp, and college turn'd to hollow shows ; 
I seem'd to move in old memorial tilts, 
And doing battle with forgotten ghosts,— 

To dream myself the shadow of a dream ; 470 

And ere I woke it was the point of noon. 
The lists were ready. Empanoplied ^ and plum'd 
We enter'd in, and waited, fifty there 
Oppos'd to fifty, till the trumpet blar'd 
At the barrier like a wild horn in a land 
Of echoes, and a moment, and once more 
The trumpet, and again ; at which the storm 

1 Supply "women." 2 Young child. 

3 Vegetables. 4 See Canto I. lines 96-99. 

5 In full armor. 



CANTO v.] ' A MEDLEY. 1 07 

Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears 

And riders front to front, until they clos'd 

In conflict with the crash of shivering points, 480 

And thunder. Yet it seem'd a dream ; I dream'd 

Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed, 

And into fiery splinters leapt the lance, 

And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. 

Part sat like rocks ; part reel'd but kept their seats ; 

Part roll'd on the earth and rose again and drew ; 

Part stumbled mixt with floundering horses. Down 

From those two bulks ^ at Arac's side, and down 

From Arac's arm, as from a giant's flail, 

The large blows rain'd, as here and everywhere 490 

He rode the mellay,^ lord of the ringing lists ; 

And all the plain,— brand, mace, and shaft, and shield, — 

Shock'd, like an iron-clanging anvil bang'd 

With hammers ; till I thought, can this be he 

From Gama's dwarfish loins ? If this be so. 

The mother makes us most. And in my dream 

I glanc'd aside, and saw the palace front 

Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies' eyes ; 

And highest, among the statues, statuehke, 

Between a cymbal'd Miriam and a Jael,^ 500 

With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us, 

A single band of gold about her hair. 

Like a saint's glory * up in heaven. But she 

No saint, — inexorable, no tenderness, — 

Too hard, too cruel. Yet she sees me fight ; 

Yea, let her see me faU! With that I drave^ 

1 " Those two bulks," i.e., the huge twins. 

2 An English spelling of the French melee. The word means a confused 
conflict ; a tourney in which many combatants take part. 

3 For Miriam, see Exod. xv. 20, 21 ; for Jael, Judg. iv. 17-22. 

4 The luminous halo which in paintings encircles the head of divine or 
saintly forms. 5 Old form of " drove." 



io8 THE PRINCESS: [canto v. 

Among the thickest and bore down a prince, 

And Cyril one. Yea, let me make my dream 

All that I would. But that large-molded man, 

His visage all agrin as at a wake,i 510 

Made at me thro' the press ; and, staggering back. 

With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman came., 

As comes a pillar of electric cloud,^ 

Flaying the roofs, and sucking up the drains, 

And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes 

On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits, 

And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth 

Reels, and the herdsmen cry ; for everything 

Gave way before him. Only Florian, he 

That lov'd me closer than his own right eye, 520 

Thrust in between ; but Arac rode him down. 

And Cyril seeing it, push'd against the prince, 

With Psyche's color round his helmet, tough, 

Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms ; 

But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote 

And threw him. Last I spurr'd ; I felt my veins 

Stretch with fierce heat ; a moment hand to hand, 

And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung, 

Till I struck out and shouted ; the blade glanc'd, 

I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth 530 

Flow'd from me ; darkness clos'd me, and I fell. 



Home they brought her warrior dead; 

She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry ; 
All her maidens, M^atching, said, 

" She must weep or she will die." 

1 A wake was a festival to celebrate the building of a parish church, and 
was kept by an all-night watch in the church. Tents near by afforded food 
to the watchers. In time devotion and reverence fell away, and the feasts be- 
came a mere fair and merrymaking. 

2 " Pillar of electric cloud," i.e., a cyclone cloud. 



CANTO VI.] A MEDLEY. 109 

Then they prais'd him, soft and low, 

Call'd him worthy to be lov'd, 
Truest friend and noblest foe ; 

Yet she neither spoke nor mov'd. 

Stole a maiden from her place, 

Lightly to the warrior stept, 
Took the face cloth from the face ; 

Yet she neither mov'd nor wept. 

Rose a nurse of ninety years. 

Set his child upon her knee ; 
Like summer tempest came her tears — 

*' Sweet my child, I live for thee." 1 



CANTO VI. 



My dream had never died, or liv'd again. 
As in some mystic middle state I lay ; 
Seeing, I saw not, hearing not, I heard ; 
Tho', if I saw not, yet they told me all 
So often that I speak as having seen. 

For so it seem'd, or so they said to me. 
That all things grew more tragic and more strange ; 
That when our side was vanquish'd and my cause 
Forever lost, there went up a great cry, 
" The Prince is slain." My father heard and ran 
In on the hsts, and there unlac'd my casque, 
And grovel'd on my body ; and after him 
Came Psyche, sorrowing for Aglaia. ^ 

But high upon the palace Ida stood 
1 See Introduction, p. 14. 



no THE PRINCESS: [canto vi. 

With Psyche's babe in arm. There on the roofs, 
Like that great dame of Lapidoth ^ she sang : 

" Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n. The seed, 
The little seed they laugh'd at in the dark, 
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk 
Of spanless girth, that lays on every side 20 

A thousand arms and rushes to the sun. 2 

" Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n. They came; 
The leaves were wet with women's tears ; they heard 
A noise of songs they would not understand ; 
They mark'd it with the red cross 3 to the fall. 
And would have strown it, and are fall'n themselves. 

" Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n. They came, 
The woodmen with their axes ; lo the tree ! 
But we will make it fagots for the hearth. 

And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor, -30 

And boats and bridges for the use of men. 

" Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n. They struck ; 
With their own blows they hurt themselves, nor knew 
There dwelt an iron nature in the grain ; 
The glittering ax was broken in their arms. 
Their arms were shatter'd to the shoulder blade. 

** Our enemies have fall'n ; but this shall grow 
A night of summer from the heat, a breadth 
Of autumn dropping fruits of power ; and roll'd 
With music in the growing breeze of time, 40 

The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs * 
Shall move the stony bases of the world. 

" And now, O maids, behold our sanctuary 
Is violate,^ our laws broken. Fear we not 

1 "That great dame of Lapidoth," i.e., Deborah, the wife of Lapidoth 
(see Judg. iv. 4, 5). 

2 " Rushes to the sun," i.e., grows to great height. 

3 " Red cross," i.e., the red mark of the forester, to show that the tree is 
to be cut down. 

* Roots. 5 Violated; profaned. 



CANTO VI.] A MEDLEY. Ill 

To break them more in their behoof whose arms 

Champion'd our cause, and won it with a day 

Blanch'd ^ in our annals, and perpetual feast, 

When dames and heroines of the golden year^ 

Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of spring,^ 

To rain an April of ovation round 50 

Their statues, borne aloft, the three. But come, 

We will be liberal, since our rights are won. 

Let them not lie in the tents with coarse mankind, 

111 nurses ; but descend, and proffer these 

The brethren of our blood and cause, that there 

Lie bruis'd and maim'd, the tender ministries 

Of female hands and hospitahty." 

She spoke, and with the babe yet in her arms, 
Descending, burst the great bronze valves, and led 
A hundred maids in train across the park. 60 

Some cowl'd ^ and some bare-headed, on they came, 
Their feet in flowers, her loveHest.^ By them went 
The enamor'd air sighing, and on their curls 
From the high tree the blossom wavering fell. 
And over them the tremulous isles of light 
Slided,^ they moving under shade. '^ But Blanche 
At distance follow'd. So they came. Anon 
Thro' open field into the Ksts they wound 
Timorously ; and as the leader of the herd. 
That holds a stately fretwork ^ to the sun, 70 

1 Marked with white to denote joy. 

2 " The golden year," i.e., the coming excellent and glorious age. 

3 The flowers of spring. 

4 Hooded ; the head covered with the cowl or hood of the academic gown. 

5 Loveliest students. 6 Poetical form for " slid." 

■7 In a letter to Mr. Dawson, Tennyson says in regard to this passage 
that he referred to " spots of sunshine coming through the leaves and seeming 
to slide from one to the other as the procession of girls moves under shade." 

8 The interlacing horns of the deer. 



112 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi. 

And follow'd up by a hundred airy does, 

Steps with a tender foot, hght as on air, 

The lovely, lordly creature floated on 

To where her wounded brethren lay ; there stay'd ; 

Knelt on one knee, — the child on one, — and prest 

Their hands, and call'd them dear deliverers, 

And happy warriors, and immortal names, 

And said, " You shall not lie in the tents but here, 

And nurs'd by those for whom you fought, and serv'd 

With female hands and hospitality." 80 

Then, whether mov'd by this, — or was it chance, — 
She past my way. Up started from my side 
The old lion, glaring with his whelpless eye. 
Silent. But' when she saw me lying stark, 
Dishelm'd and mute, and motionlessly pale. 
Cold ev'n to her, she sigh'd ; and when she saw 
The haggard father's face and reverend beard 
Of grisly twine all dabbled with the blood 
Of his own son, shudder'd, a twitch of pain 
Tortur'd her mouth, and o'er her forehead past 90 

A shadow, and her hue chang'd, and she said : 
" He sav'd my life ; my brother slew him for it ;" 
No more ; at which the king in bitter scorn 
Drew from my neck the painting and the tress,i 
And held them up. She saw them, and a day 
Rose from the distance on her memory, 
When the good queen, her mother, shore ^ the tress 
With kisses, ere the days of Lady Blanche. 
And then once more she look'd at my pale face ; 
Till, understanding all the foolish work 100 

Of Fancy,^ and the bitter close of all, 

1 See Canto I. lines 37, 38. 

2 The old past tense of " shear." 

3 Fanciful ideals, such as her own. 



CANTO VI.] A MEDLEY. 113 

Her iron will was broken in her mind ; 

Her noble heart was molten in her breast. 

She bow'd ; she set the child on the earth ; she laid 

A feehng finger on my brows, and presently, 

" O sire," she said, "he lives; he is not dead; 

O let me have him with my brethren here 

In our own palace. We will tend on him 

Like one of these ; if so, by any means, 

To lighten this great clogi of thanks that make no 

Our progress falter to the woman's goal." 

She said ; but at the happy word " he lives " 
My father stoop'd, refather'd,- o'er my wounds. 
So those two foes above my fallen life, • 
With brow to brow, like night and evening, mixt 
Their dark and gray, while Psyche ever stole 
A little nearer ; till the babe that by us, 
Half-lapt in glowing gauze and golden brede,^ 
Lay like a new-fall'n meteor on the grass, 

Uncar'd for, spied its mother and began 120 

A blind and babbhng laughter, and to dance 
Its body, and reach its fathng* innocent arms 
And lazy lingering fingers. She the appeal 
Brook'd not, but clamoring out, " Mine— mine— not yours, 
It is not yours, but mine ; give me the child," 
Ceas'd all on tremble ;^ piteous was the cry. 
So stood the unhappy mother open-mouth'd. 
And turn'd each face her way. Wan was her cheek 
With hollow watch, her blooming mantle torn, 
Red grief and mother's hunger in her eye, 130 

1 Encumbrance ; that which makes motion difificult. 

2 Made again a father, his son having revived. 

3 Embroidery. * A diminutive of fat. 

5 "On tremble," i.e., a-tremble. For like usage of the early English 
" on" see " on sleep," Acts xiii. 36. 



114 THE PRINCESS: [canio \ i. 

And down dead-heavy sank her curls, and half 

The sacred mother's bosom, panting, burst 

The laces toward her babe ; but she nor car'd 

Nor knew it, clamoring on, till Ida heard, 

Look'd up, and rising slowly from me, stood 

Erect and silent, striking with her glance 

The mother, me, the child. But he that lay 

Beside us, Cyril, batter'd as he was, 

Trail'd himself up on one knee ; then he dre\Y 

Her robe to meet his hps, and down she look'd 140 

At the arm'd man sideways, pitying as it seem'd, 

Or self-involv'd;i but when she learnt his face, 

Remembering his ill-omen'd song, arose 

Once more thro' all her height, and o'er him grew 

Tall as a figure lengthen'd on the sand 

When the tide ebbs in sunshine ; and he said : 

"O fair and strong and terrible! Lioness 
That with your long locks play the Hon's mane! 
But Love and Nature, these are two more terrible 
And stronger. See, your foot is on our necks, 150 

We vanquish'd, you the victor of your will.^ 
What would you more ? Give her the child! Remain 
Orb'd in your isolation. He is dead, 
"Or all as dead ; henceforth we let you be. 
Win you the hearts of women ; and beware 
Lest, where you seek the common love of these. 
The common hate with the revolving wheel 
Should drag you down, and some great Nemesis ^ 

1 Wrapped up in thought. 

2 " Victor of your will," i.e., victor in that which you wished. 

3 In Greek poetry the great retributive justice of the world ; the goddess 
who saw that an exact proportion of individual prosperity was preserved, and 
that the one who became too prosperous, or too set up by his prosperity, was 
reduced or punished. 



CANTO VI.] A MEDLEY. Iig 

Break from a darken'd future, crown'd with fire, 

And tread you out forever. But howsoe'er l6o 

Fix'd in yourself, never in your own arms 

To hold your own, deny not hers to her; 

Give her the child! Oh if, I say, you keep 

One pulse that beats true woman, if you lov'd 

The breast that fed or arm that dandled you, 

Or own one port ^ of sense not flint to prayer, 

Give her the child! Or if you scorn to lay it 

Yourself in hands so lately claspt with yours, 

Or speak to her, your dearest, her one fault 

The tenderness, not yours, that could not kill, 170 

Give vie it ; /will give it her." 

He said. 
At first her eye with slow dilation roll'd 
Dry flame, she listening ; after, sank and sank 
And, into mournful twilight mellowing, dwelt 
Full on the child. She took it : *' Pretty bud! 
Lily of the vale! half-open'd bell of the woods! 
Sole comfort of my dark hour, when a world 
Of traitorous friend and broken system made 
No purple in the distance ! - mystery, 

Pledge of a love not to be mine, farewell ! 180 

These men are hard upon us as of old ; 
We two must part ; and yet how fain was I 
To dream thy cause embrac'd in mine, to think 
I might be something to thee, when I felt 
Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast 
In the dead prime.^ But may thy mother prove 
As true to thee as false, false, false to me! 
And, if thou needs must bear the yoke, I wish it 

1 Approach; entrance. 

2 " No purple in the distance," i.e., no color, no beauty, in the future. 
" In the distance " is as of a landscape. 

3 " The dead prime," i.e., the silent early morning. 



Il6 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi. 

Gentle as freedom " — here she kiss'd it ; then — 

"All good go with thee! — Take it, sir," and so 190 

Laid the soft babe in his hard-mailed hands, 

Who turn'd half round to Psyche as she sprang 

To meet it, with an eye that swum in thanks,^ 

Then felt it sound and whole from head to foot, 

And hugg'd and never hugg'd it close enough. 

And in her hunger mouth'd and mumbled it, 

And hid her bosom with it ; after that 

Put on more calm, and added suppliantly : 

" We two were friends. I go to mine own land 
Forever; find some other. As for me, 200 

I scarce am fit for your great plans ; yet speak to me, 
Say one soft word and let me part ^ forgiven." 

But Ida spoke not, rapt upon the child. 
Then Arac : " Ida — 'sdeath! you blame the man; 
You wrong yourselves — the woman is so hard 
Upon the woman. ^ Come, a grace ^ to me! 
I am your warrior ; I and mine have fought 
Your battle ; kiss her ; take her hand, she weeps ; 
'Sdeath ! I would sooner fight thrice o'er than see it." 

But Ida spoke not, gazing on the ground; 210 

And reddening in the furrows of his chin. 
And mov'd beyond his custom, Gama said : 



" I've heard that there is iron in the blood, 
And I believe it. Not one word ? not one? 

1 " Swum in thanks," i.e., swam in thankful tears. 

2 See note 8, p. 44. 

3 This fact Ida's scheme of broadening women's wisdom and sympathies 
would do away with. Much harsh judgment comes from narrowness of ex- 
perience and lack of a knowledge of life. 

* Favor. 



CANTO VI,] A MEDLEY. 117 

Whence drew you this steel temper? Not from me ; 

Not from your mother, now a saint with saints. 

She said you had a heart — I heard her say it — 

'Our Ida has a heart ' — just ere she died — 

* But see that some one with authority 

Be near her still;' and I — I sought for one — 220 

All people said she had authority — 

The Lady Blanche; much profit! Not one word? 

No ! tho' your father sues. See how you stand 

Stiff as Lot's wife,i and all the good knights maim'd — 

I trust that there is no one hurt to death — 

For your wild whim. And was it then for this, 

Was it for this we gave our palace up, 

Where we withdrew from summer heats and state, 

And had our wine and chess beneath the planes, 

And many a pleasant hour with her that's gone, 230 

Ere you were born to vex us? Is it kind? 

Speak to her, I say. Is this not she of whom. 

When first she came, all flush'd you said to me 

Now had you got a friend of your own age, 

Now could you share your thought, now should men see 

Two women faster welded in one love 

Than pairs of wedlock? she you walk'd with, she 

You talk'd with, whole nights long, up in the tower. 

Of sine and arc, spheroid and azimuth, 

And right ascension,^ — Heaven knows what. And now 240 

A word, but one, one little kindly word. 

Not one to spare her! Out upon you, flint! 

You love nor her, nor me, nor any ; nay, 

You shame your mother's judgment too. Not one? 

You will not? Well— no heart have you, or such 

As fancies, like the vermin in a nut, 

1 After she became a pillar of salt (see Gen. xix. 15-26). 

2 These terms, used in the mathematics of astronomy, are piled up in de- 
rision by the scorn and impatience of the king. 



ii8 THE PRINCESS: tcAiNxo vi. 

Have fretted all to dust and bitterness." ^ 

So said the small king, mov'd beyond his wont. 

But Ida stood, nor spoke, drain'd of her force 
By many a varying influence and so long. 250 

Down thro' her limbs a drooping languor wept;^ 
Her head a Httle bent ; and on her mouth 
A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon 
In a still water. Then brake out my sire, 
Lifting his grim head from my wounds : " O you, 
Woman, whom we thought woman even now. 
And were half fool'd to let you tend our son. 
Because he might have wish'd it — but we see 
The accomplice of your madness unforgiven, 
And think that you might mix his draught with death, 260 

When your skies change again ; the rougher hand 
Is safer. — On to the tents; take up the Prince." 

He rose, and while each ear was prick'd to attend 
A tempest, thro' the cloud that dimm'd her broke 
A genial warmth and light once more, and shone 
Thro* glittering drops on her sad friend : 

" Come hither, 

Psyche," she cried out, " embrace me, come. 
Quick, while I melt ; make reconcilement sure 
With one that cannot keep her mind an hour. 

Come to the hollow^ heart they slander so! 270 

Kiss and be friends, hke children being chid! 
/seem no more; /want forgiveness too. 

1 should have had to do with none but maids 
That have no links with men. Ah, false but dear, 

1 " As fancies," etc., i.e., your fancies have worn your heart to dust. 

2 " Down thro' her limbs," etc., i.e., her grief was expressed by a soften- 
ing of her attitude. 

3 Referring to Gama's speech, lines 245-247. 



CANTO VI.] A MEDLEY. 119 

Dear traitor, too much lov'd, why? — why? Yet see, 
Before these kings ^ we embrace you yet once more 
With all forgiveness, all oblivion, 
And trust, not love, you less. — 

And now, O sire, 
Grant me your son, to nurse, to wait upon him, 
Like mine own brother. For my debt to him, 280 

This nightmare weight of gratitude, I know it ; 
Taunt me no more. Yourself and yours shall have 
Free adit.^ We will scatter all our maids 
Till happier times,, each to her proper ^ hearth ; 
What use to keep them here — now? Grant my prayer. — 
Help, father, brother, help ; speak to the king ; 
Thaw this male nature to some touch of that* 
Which kills me with myself, and drags me down 
From my fixt height to mob me up with all 

The soft and milky rabble of womankind, 290 

Poor weakling ev'n as they are." 

Passionate tears 
Follow'd. The king replied not ; Cyril said : 
"Your brother. Lady, — Florian, — ask for him 
Of your great Head, — for he is wounded too, — 
That you may tend upon him with the Prince." 
" Ay so," said Ida, with a bitter smile, 
" Our laws are broken ; let him enter too." 
Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song,^ 
And had a cousin tumbled ^ on the plain, 

Petition'd too for him. " Ay so," she said, 300 

" I stagger in the stream ; I cannot keep 
My heart an eddy from the brawling hour ; 
We break our laws with ease, but let it be." 

1 As witnesses most solemn and sacred (see Note 2, p. 83). 

2 Access. 3 Own. ^ Susceptibility ; tenderness ; pity. 

5 See Canto IV. lines 19, 20, etc. 

6 Unhorsed. 



I20 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi. 

" Ay SO ? " said Blanche. " Amaz'd am I to hear 
Your Highness ; but your Highness breaks with ease 
The law your Highness did not make ; 'twas I. 
I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind, 
And block' d them out ; but these men came to woo 
Your Highness — verily I think to win." 

So she, and turn'd askance a wintry eye. 310 

But Ida, with a voice that hke a bell 
Toll'd by an earthquake in a trembling tower, 
Rang ruin, answer'd full of grief and scorn : , 

" Fling our doors wide! all, all, not one, but all! 
Not only he, but, by my mother's soul, 
Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe. 
Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls flit. 
Till the storm die ! But had you stood by us. 
The roar that breaks the Pharos ^ from his base 
Had left us rock. — She fain would sting us too, 320 

But shall not. — Pass, and mingle with your likes. 
We brook no further insult, but are gone." 

She turn'd ; the very nape of her white neck 
Was ros'd 2 with indignation. But the prince 
Her brother came ; the king her father charm'd 
Her wounded soul with words ; nor did mine own 
Refuse her proffer, lastly gave his hand. 

Then us they lifted up, dead weights, and bare 
Straight to the doors. To them the doors gave way 

1 The lighthouse which stood on the island of Pharos, at the entrance to 
the port of Alexandria. It was built by Egyptian kings in the third century 
B.C., and is said to have been four hundred feet in height. 

2 Flushed; reddened. 



CANTO VI.] A MEDLEY. 121 

Groaningji a^d in the vestal entry shriek'd 330 

The virgin marble under iron heels ; 

And on they mov'd and gain'd the hall, and there 

Rested ; but great the crush was, and each base, 

To left and right, of those tall columns drown'd 

In silken fluctuation and the swarm 

Of female whisperers. At the further end 

Was Ida by the throne, the two great cats^ 

Close by her, hke supporters on a shield, 

Bow-back'd with fear. But in the center stood 

The common men with rolling eyes ; amaz'd 340 

They glar'd upon the women, and aghast 

The women star'd at these, all silent, save 

When armor clash'd or jingled ; while the day, 

Descending, struck athwart the hall, and shot 

A flying splendor out of brass and steel 

That o'er the statues leapt from head to head, — 

Now fir'd an angry Pallas ^ on the helm. 

Now set a wrathful Dian's * moon on flame. 

And now and then an echo started up. 

And shuddering fled from room to room, and died 350 

Of fright in far apartments. 

Then the voice 
Of Ida sounded, issuing ordinance ; 
And me they bore up the broad stairs, and thro' 
The long-laid galleries, past a hundred doors. 
To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due ^ 

1 Groaning and shrieking at the desecration. The words are used humor- 
ously. 

2 The leopards upon either side, as in heraldry the figures of animals stand 
by a shield. The lion and unicorn are thus a part of the arms of England. 

3 See Note i, p. 35. 

4 Diana, or Artemis, to whom was attributed authority over the moon, 
was the goddess of purity. In art she is represented as a maiden of noble 
and severe beauty. Her emblem was the crescent moon. 

5 Given over. 



122 THE PRINCESS: [canto vii. 

To languid limbs and sickness ; left me in it ; 

And others otherwhere they laid ; and all 

That afternoon a sound arose of hoof 

And chariot, many a maiden passing home 

Till happier times. But some were left of those 360 

Held sagest, and the great lords out and in, 

From those two hosts that lay beside the walls, 

Walk'd at their will, and everything was chang'd. 



Ask me no more. The moon may draw the sea ; 

The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, 
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape ; 

But O too fond, when have I answer 'd thee? 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more. What answer should I give? 

I love not hollow cheek or faded eye ; 

Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! 
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live ; 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more. Thy fate and mine are seal'd. 

I strove against the stream and all in vain ; 

Let the great river take me to the main. 
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield ; 
Ask me no more.l 



CANTO VII. 

So was their sanctuary violated, 

So their fair college turn'd to hospital ; 

At first with all confusion ; by and by 

Sweet order Hv'd again with other laws ; 

A kindlier influence reign'd ; and everywhere 

Low voices,^ with the ministering hand, 

1 See Introduction, p. 14. 

2 " Her voice was ever soft, 
Gentle, and low — an excellent thing in woman." 

King Lear, act ii. so. 3. 



CANTO VII.] A MEDLEY, 123 

Hung round the sick. The maidens came, they talk'd, 

They sang, they read ; till she not fair began 

To gather Hght, and she that was, became 

Her former beauty treble; and to and fro 10 

With books, with flowers, with angel offices, 

Like creatures native unto gracious act. 

And in their own clear element, they mov'd. 

But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, 
And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame. 
Old studies fail'd ; seldom she spoke ; but oft 
Clomb 1 to the roofs, and gaz'd alone for hours 
On that disastrous leaguer,^ swarms of men 
Darkening her female field.^ Void was her use, 
And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze 20 

O'er land and main,'^ and sees a great black cloud 
Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night. 
Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore,^ 
And suck the blinding splendor from the sand. 
And, quenching lake by lake and tarn ^ by tarn. 
Expunge the world. So far'd she gazing there ; 
So blacken'd all her world in secret ; blank 
And waste it seem'd and vain ; till down she came, 
And found fair peace once more among the sick. 

1- The old past tense of climb. 

2 Camp. The word is allied to the German lager (" camp "), and to the 
Enghsh " lie," " lair," etc. 

3 " Female field," i.e., both the field belonging to the college estate and 
the cause of the higher education of women and celibate life, to which she had 
given her efforts. 

4 Tennyson said in a letter to Mr. Dawson that this simile was suggested 
by " a coming storm as seen from the top of Snowdon." It is also in the 
Iliad, Book IV. line 275. 

5 " The slope of sea," etc., i.e., the slope which the sea seems to make 
from the horizon to the shore. 

* A small mountain lake. 



124 THE PRINCESS: [canto vii. 

And twilight dawn'd, and morn by morn the lark 30 

Shot up and shrill'd in flickering gyres/ but I 
Lay silent in the muffled cage of hfe ; 
And twilight gloom'd ; and, broader grown, the bowers 
Drew the great night into themselves, and heaven. 
Star after star, arose and fell ; but I, 
Deeper than those weird doubts could reach me, lay 
Quite sunder'd from the moving universe. 
Nor knew what eye was on me, nor the hand 
That nurs'd me, more than infants in their sleep. 

But Psyche tended Florian. With her oft, 40 

Mehssa came ; for Blanche had gone, but left 
Her child among us, willing she should keep 
Court favor. Here and there the small bright head, 
A light of healing, glanc'd about the couch. 
Or thro' the parted silks 2 the tender face 
Peep'd, shining in upon the wounded man 
With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves 
To wile the length from languorous hours, and draw 
The sting from pain. Nor seem'd it strange that soon 
He rose up whole, and those fair charities 50 

Join'd at her side ; nor stranger seem'd that hearts 
So gentle, so employ'd, should close in love. 
Than when two dewdrops on the petal shake 
To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down, 
And slip at once all fragrant into one. 

Less prosperously the second suit obtain'd ^ 
At first with Psyche. Not tho' Blanche had sworn 
That after that dark night among the fields 
She needs must wed him for her own good name, 
Not tho' he built upon the babe restor'd, 60 

1 The lark sings as it rises in spiral turns. 

2 Hangings. 2 Prevailed; succeeded. 



CANTO VII.] A MEDLEY. 1 25 

Nor tho' she lik'd him, yielded she, but fear'd 
To incense the Head once more ; till on a day 
When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind, 
Seen but of Psyche ; on her foot she hung 
A moment, and she heard, at which her face 
A little flush'd, and she past on ; but each 
Assum'd from thence a half-consent involv'd 
In stillness,! plighted troth, and were at peace. 

Nor only these ; Love in the sacred halls 
Held carnival at will, and flying struck 70 

With showers of random sweet on maid and man.^ 
Nor did her father cease to press my claim. 
Nor did mine own, now reconcil'd ; nor yet 
Did those twin brothers, risen again and whole ; 
Nor Arac, satiate ^ with his victory. 

But I lay still, and with me oft she sat. 
Then came a change ; for sometimes I would catch 
Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard. 
And fling it like a viper off, and shriek, 

"You are not Ida!" clasp it once again, 80 

And call her Ida, tho' I knew her not. 
And call her sweet, as if in irony. 
And call her hard and cold, which seem'd a truth. 
And still she fear'd that I should lose my mind, 
And often she believ'd that I should die ; 
Till, out of long frustration^ of her care, 
And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons. 
And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocks 

1 " Involv'd in stillness," i.e., signified or implied in silence. 

2 " Love in the sacred halls," etc., i.e., love cast at random among the 
maids and soldiers, as sweetmeats from one to another in Italian streets dur- 
ing carnival. 

3 Satiated; a shortened form, as " violate " in Canto VI. line 44. 
* Disappointment; defeat. 



126 THE PRINCESS: [canto vii. 

Throbb'd thunder thro" the palace floors, or call'd 

On flying Time from all their silver tongues ; 90 

And out of memories of her kindlier days, 

And sidelong glances at my father's grief, 

And at the happy lovers, heart in heart ; 

And out of hauntings of my spoken love, 

And lonely listenings to my mutter'd dream, 

And often feeling of the helpless hands. 

And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek, — 

From all a closer interest flourish'd 1 up, 

Tenderness, touch by touch, and last, to these. 

Love, 2 like an Alpine harebell hung with tears 100 

By some cold morning glacier ; frail at first 

And feeble, all unconscious of itself. 

But such as gathered color day by day. 

Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to death 
For weakness. It was evening ; silent light 
Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought 
Two grand designs ; for on one side arose 
The women up in wild revolt, and storm'd 
At the Oppian law.^ Titanic shapes, they cramm'd 
The forum, and, half crush'd among the rest, no 

A dwarf-like Cato cower'd. On the other side 

1 Bloomed ; blossomed. 

2 Upon this word is the accent and climax of the whole description begin- 
ning at line 76. 

3 A sumptuary law proposed by Caius Oppius and passed (215 B.C.) dur- 
ing the public distress in Rome which succeeded Hannibal's march toward 
that city. It provided that no woman should have in her dress more than 
half an ounce of gold, nor wear a garment of different colors, nor ride in 
a carriage in the city or within a mile of it, unless at a public sacrifice. 
Eighteen years after, when the women demanded the repeal of the law, they 
went about the streets and pressed into the forum with petitions until they 
gained its annulment. Cato the Elder, who then was consul, opposed the 
repeal. 



CANTO VII.] A MEDLEY. 1 27 

Hortensia ^ spoke against the tax ; behind, 
A train of dames ; by ax and eagle 2 sat, 
With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls, 
And half the wolf's milk ^ curdled in their veins, 
The fierce triumvirs ; and before them paus'd 
Hortensia, pleading ; angry was her face. 

I saw the forms ; I knew not where I was ; 
They did but look like hollow shows ; nor more 
Sweet Ida. Palm to palm she sat; the dew 120 

Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape. 
And rounder, seem'd. I mov'd ; I sigh'd ; a touch 
Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand. 
Then all for languor and self-pity ran 
Mine down my face, and with what life I had, 
And hke a flower that cannot all unfold— 
So drench'd it is with tempest— to the sun, 
Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her 
Fixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisperingly : 

" If you be what I think you, some sweet dream, 130 

I would but ask you to fulfill yourself ; 
But if you be that Ida whom I knew, 
I ask you nothing ; only, if a dream, 
Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. 
Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die." 

I could no more, but lay like one in trance, 

1 Daughter of Hortensius, a Roman orator. After the assassination of 
Julius Caesar (44 B.C.), when the second triumvirate had imposed a heavy 
tax on wealthy matrons to defray the expenses of their war, Hortensia came 
forward as the woman's advocate, and spoke so ably that a large part of the 
tax was remitted. 

2 The ax signifying civil power in the Roman republic, and the eagle, — 
the standard of the army, — military glory. 

3 The reference is to the legend of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and 
Remus. 



128 THE PRINCESS: [canto vii. 

That hears his burial talk'd of by his friends, 

And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign. 

But hes and dreads his doom. She turn'd ; she paus'd ; 

She stoop'd ; and out of languor leapt a cry; 140 

Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks of death ; 

And I believ'd that in the living world ^ 

My spirit clos'd with Ida's at the lips ; 

Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose 

Glowing all over noble shame ; and all 

Her falser self - slipt from her like a robe, 

And left her woman, lovelier in her mood 

Than in her mold that other,^ when she came 

From barren deeps to conquer all with love ; 

And down the streaming crystal dropt ; and she 150 

Far-fleeted by the purple island sides. 

Naked, a double light in air and wave, 

To meet her Graces, where they deck'd her out 

For worship without end. Nor end of mine. 

Stateliest, for thee! But mute she glided forth, 

Nor glanc'd behind her, and I sank and slept, 

Fill'd thro' and thro' with love, a happy sleep. 

Deep in the night I woke ; she, near me, held 
A volume of the Poets of her land. 
There to herself, all in low tones, she read: 160 

" Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white j 
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk ; 
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font. 
The firefly wakens ; waken thou with me. 

1 " The living world," i.e., the real world, not that of dreams or shadows. 

^ " Her falser self, " i.e., her hard self, unsympathetic with human suffering. 
. 3 Aphrodite (Venus), the goddess of love, who, in Greek myth, was born 
of the foam of the sea. Water (" streaming crystal ") dropped from her body. 
She passed swiftly and lightly ("far-fleeted") by Cythera and Cyprus, the sides 
of which sprang into bloom at her coming, and entered Paphos. Here the 
Graces met her, and kept her always beautiful. 



CANTO VII.] A MEDLEY. 129 

" Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost; 
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. 

** Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars ;i 
And all thy heart lies open unto me. 

" Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves 
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. 170 

" Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, 
And slips into the bosom of the lake ; 
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip 
Into my bosom and be lost in me." 

I heard her turn the page ; she found a small 
Sweet idyl, and once more, as low, she read : 

" Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height; 
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), 
In height and cold, the splendor of the hills? 

But cease to move so near the heavens, and cease 1 80 

To glide, a sunbeam, by the blasted pine, 
To sit, a star, upon the sparkling spire ; 
And come, for Love is of the valley, come, 
For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
And find him ; by the happy threshold, he. 
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, 
Or red with spirted purple of the vats. 
Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to walk 
With Death and Morning on the silver horns,2 

Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, 190 

Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, 
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls 
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors. 3 

1 " Danae to the stars," i.e., open to the light of the stars. In Greek 
story, Danae, a princess, was confined in a tower. To her Zeus gained ad- 
mittance by changing into a shower of gold. 

2 The imagery of the song is of Swiss scenery, and the silver horns (as 
Matterhorn) are white mountain tops. 

3 " The firths of ice," etc., i.e., glaciers which pile up (" huddle") ice in 
their downward passage, break in crevasses ("furrow-cloven"), and melt 
when they reach the lower and warmer parts of the mountain. The " dusky " 
discharge is dark by comparison with the ice and snow from vs-hich it issues. 



I30 THE PRINCESS: [CANTO vii. 

But follow ; let the torrent dance thee down 

To find him in the valley ; let the wild 

Lean-headed eagles yelp alone, and leave 

The monstrous ledges there to slope and spill 

Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke. 

That like a broken purpose waste in air. 

So waste not thou, but come; for all the vales 200 

Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth 

Arise to thee ; the children call, and I, 

Thy shepherd, pipe, and sweet is every. sound, — 

Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; — 

Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, 

The moan of doves in immemorial elms. 

And murmuring of innumerable bees." 1 

So she, low ton'd ; while with shut eyes I lay- 
Listening; then look'd. Pale was the perfect face; 
The bosom with long sighs labor'd ; and meek 210 

Seem'd the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes, 
And the voice trembled, and the hand. She said 
Brokenly that she knew it, she had fail'd 
In sweet humility, — had fail'd in all ; 
That all her labor was but as a block 2 
Left in the quarry ; but she still were loath, 
She still were loath to yield herself to one 
That wholly scorn'd to help their equal rights 
Against the sons of men and barbarous laws. 
She pray'd me not to judge their cause from her 220 

That wrong'd it, sought far less for truth than power 
la knowledge ; something wild witliin her breast, 
A greater than all knowledge, beat her down. 

1 " This beautiful song is," says J. Churton Collins, " a splendid illustra- 
tion of Tennyson's method. Taking the framework from Theocritus [a part 
of the eleventh Idyl], he wreathes round, beneath, and over it such a wealth 
of original ornament that it is barely discernible. . . . The whole passage is 
a marvelous illustration of Tennyson's power of catching and rendering in 
English the charm of the best and sweetest Greek pastoral poetry." 

2 Of marble left unfinished by the laborers. 



CANTO VII.] A MEDLEY. 131 

And she had nurs'd me there from week to week. 
Much had she learnt in Httle time. In part 
It was ill counsel had misled the girl 
To vex true hearts ; yet was she but a girl — 
"Ah, fool, and made myself a queen of farce! 
When comes another such? Never, I think, 
Till the sun drop, dead, from the signs." ^ 

Her voice 230 

Chok'd, and her forehead sank upon her hands, 
And her great heart thro' all the faultful past 
Went sorrowing in a pause I dar'd not break ; 
Till notice of a change in the dark world 
Was hspt about the acacias, and a bird, 
That early woke to feed her little ones. 
Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light. 
She mov'd, and at her feet the volume fell. 

" Blame not thyself too much," I said, " nor blame 
Too much the sons of men, and barbarous laws ; 240 

These were the rough ways of the world till now. 
Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 
The woman's cause is man's ; they rise or sink 
Together, dwarf 'd or godlike, bond or free. 
For she that out of Lethe ^ scales with man 
The shining steps of Nature, shares with man 
His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal. 
Stays all the fair young planet ^ in her hands, — 
If she be small, slight-natur'd, miserable. 
How shall men grow? But work no more alone! 250 

1 The signs of the zodiac. 

2 Oblivion ; the river of oblivion in Hades. The souls of the dead w^ho 
drank of this river, so the Greeks taught, might return again to earth to live 
in a new body. The phrase " out of Lethe " must here mean from her birth. 
See Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality: " Our birth is but a 
sleep and a forgetting." 

3 Generation ; a planet is a star revolving in an orbit. 



13^ THE PRINCESS: [canto yu. 

Our place is much ; as far as in us lies 

We two will serve them both in aiding her, — 

Will clear away the parasitic forms ^ 

That seem to keep her up but drag her down, 

Will leave her space to burgeon 2 out of all 

Within her, let her make herself her own 

To give or keep, to live and learn and be 

All that not harms ^ distinctive womanhood. 

For woman is not undevelopt man, 

But diverse ; could we make her as the man, 260 

Sweet Love were slain. His dearest bond is this, 

Not like to like, but like in difference. 

Yet in the long years liker must they grow ; 

The man be more of woman, she of man ; 

He gain in sweetness and in moral height. 

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; 

She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 

Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind,* 

Till at the last she set herself to man. 

Like perfect music unto noble words. 270 

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 

Sit side by side, full summ'd in all their powers, 

Dispensing harvest, sowing the to-be,^ 

Self reverent each and reverencing each. 

Distinct in individualities, 

But like each other ev'n as those who love. 

Then comes the statelier Eden ^ back to men ; 

1 " Parasitic forms," i.e., the empty shows of respect and reverence which 
sap her strength and check her growth, as a parasitic vine drags down an elm. 

2 Bud ; put forth new branches. 

3 " Not harms " is a common order of words with Shakespeare and his 
contemporaries, and also in the prose of Milton. 

4 " Nor lose," etc., i.e., not lose faith and serenity and calmness in gaining 
knowledge of practical difficulties and larger human sympathies. 

5 See similar usage, line 335. 

6 The perfect joy of Eden before sin came into the world. 



CANTO VII.] A MEDLEY. 133 

Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm ; 
Then springs the crowning race of humankind. 
May these things be ! " 

Sighing she spoke : " I fear 280 

They will not." 

" Dear, but let us type 1 them now 
In our own lives, and this proud watchword rest 
Of equal,2 seeing either sex alone 
Is half itself, and in true mamage lies 
Nor equal, nor unequal ; each fulfills 
Defect in each, and always, thought in thought, 
Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow, 
The single pure and perfect animal, 
The two-cell'd heart beating, with one full stroke. 
Life." 

And again sighing she spoke : " A dream 290 

That once was mine! What woman taught you this? " 

" Alone," I said, " from earlier than I know, 
Immers'd in rich for^shadowings of the world, 
I lov'd the woman \^ he that doth not, lives 
A drowning life, besotted in sweet self, 
Or pines in sad experience worse than death, 
Or keeps his wing'd affections dipt with crime. 
Yet was there one thro' whom I lov'd her, one 
Not learned, save in gracious household ways. 
Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants, 300 

No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
In angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 
Interpreter between the gods and men. 
Who look'd all native to her place, and yet 

1 Typify ; sTiow by example. 

2 " This proud watchword," etc., i.e., let us put aside this proud watch- 
word of the equality of the sexes. 

3 Woman in the abstract : womankind. 



134 THE PRINCESS: [canto vii. 

On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 

Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 

Sway'd to her from their orbits as they mov'd, 

And girdled her with music.^ Happy he 

With such a mother! faith in womankind 

Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high 310 

Comes easy to him, and tho* he trip and fall 

He shall not blind his soul with clay." 

" But I," 
Said Ida, tremulously, " so all unlike — 
It seems you love to cheat yourself with words ; 
This mother is your model. I have heard 
Of your strange doubts ; they well might be ; I seem 
A mockery to. my own self. Never, Prince; 
You cannot love me." 

" Nay, but thee," I said, 
" From year-long poring on thy pictur'd eyes, 
Ere seen I lov'd' and lov'd thee seen, and saw 320 

Thee woman thro' the crust of iron moods 
That mask'd thee from men's reverence up, and forc'd 
Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood. Now, 
Giv'n back to hfe, to life indeed, thro' thee. 
Indeed I love. The new day comes, the light 
Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults 
Liv'd over. Lift thine eyes ; my doubts are dead. 
My haunting sense of hollow shows ;2 the change. 
This truthful change in thee has kill'd it. Dear, 
Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine, 330 

Like yonder morning on the blind half- world ; 
Approach and fear not ; breathe upon my brows ; 

1 The music of the spheres was, according to the teaching of the Greek 
philosopher Pythagoras, produced by the movement of the heavenly bodies 
the seven planets giving out the seven notes of the gamut. The melodies 
were thought most exquisite, and too delicate to be heard by the ears of men. 

2 Feeling that appearances of Ida were unreal. 



,,,, T A MEDLEY. ^^5 

CANTO VII. I ^ 

In that fine air I tremble, all the past 
Melts mistlike into this bright hour, and this 
Is mom to more,i and all the rich to-come 
Reels, as the golden autumn woodland reels 
Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me, 
I waste my heart in signs ; let be. My bride 
My wife, my hfe! O we will walk this world, 
Yok'd in all exercise of noble end. 
And so thro' those dark gates across the wild 
That no man knows. Indeed I love thee ; come, 
Yield thyself up ; my hopes and thine are one. 
AccompHsh thou my manhood and thyself ; ^^ 
Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me. 
1 - Morn to more," i.e., the beginning of more. 



340 



136 THE PRINCESS: [conclusion. 



CONCLUSION. 

So clos'd our tale, of which I give you all 

The random scheme as wildly as it rose. 

The words are mostly mine ; for when we ceas'd 

There came a minute's pause, and Walter said, 

" I wish she had not yielded! " then to me, 

" What if you drest it up poetically ! " 

So pray'd the men, the women. I gave assent. 

Yet how to bind the scatter'd scheme of seven 

Together in one sheaf? What style could suit? 

The men requir'd that I should give throughout 10 

The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque ^ 

With which we banter'd httle Lilia first ; 

The women — and perhaps they felt their power, 

For something in the ballads which they sang. 

Or in their silent influence as they sat. 

Had ever seem'd to wrestle with burlesque, 

And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close — 

They hated banter, wish'd for something real, 

A gallant fight, a noble princess ; why 

Not make her true-heroic — true-sublime? 20 

Or all, they said, as earnest as the close? 

Which yet with such a framework scarce could be. 

Then rose a little feud betwixt the two. 

Betwixt the mockers and the realists ; 

And I, betwixt them both, to please them both, 

And yet to give the story as it rose, 

1 Gigantic in character. 



CONCLUSION.] A MEDLEY. i37 

I mov'd as in a strange diagonal, 

And maybe neither pleas'd myself nor them. 

But Lilia pleas'd me, for she took no part 
In our dispute. The sequel of the tale 30 

Had touch'd her ; and she sat, she pluck'd the grass, 
She flung it from her, thinking ; last, she fixt 
A showery glance upon her aunt, and said, 
"You — tell us what we are;" who might have told — 
For she was cramm'd with theories out of books — 
But that there rose a shout. The gates were clos'd 
At sunset, and the crowd were swarming now, 
To take their leave, about the garden rails. 

So I and some went out to these. We climb'd 
The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw 40 

The happy valleys, half in light and half 
Far shadowing from the west, a land of peace. 
Gray halls alone among their massive groves ; 
Trim hamlets ; here and there a rustic tower 
Half lost in belts of hop and breadths of wheat ; 
The shimmering glimpses of a stream ; the seas ; 
A red sail, or a white ; and far beyond, 
Imagin'd more than seen, the skirts of France. 

" Look there ! a garden ! " said my college friend, 
The Tory 1 member's elder son, " and there! 50 

God bless the narrow sea 2 which keeps her off. 
And keeps our Britain, whole within herself, 
A nation yet, the rulers and the rul'd— 
Some sense of duty, something of a faith, 
Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, 

1 The Tory was the more conservative of the two great political parties in 
Great Britain. It is now called Conservative. " Member " is commonly 
used for " Member of Parliament." 

<* Strait of Dover. 



13S THE PRINCESS: [conclusion. 

Some patient force to change them when we will, 

Some civic manhood firm against the crowd — 

But yonder,! whiff! there comes a sudden heat, 

The gravest citizen seems to lose his head. 

The king is scar'd, the soldier will not fight, 60 

The little boys begin to shoot and stab, 

A kingdom topples over with a shriek, 

Like an old woman, and down rolls the world 

In mock heroics stranger than our own ; 

Revolts, republics, revolutions, most 

No graver than a schoolboys' barring out ; 

Too comic for the solemn things they are. 

Too solemn for the comic touches in them, 

Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream 

As some of theirs. God bless the narrow seas! 70 

I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad." 

" Have patience," I rephed, " ourselves are full 
Of social wrong ; and maybe wildest dreams 
Are but the needful preludes of the truth. 
For me, the genial day, the happy crowd. 
The sport half science, fill me with a faith.2 
This fine old world of ours is but a child 
Yet in the gocart. Patience! Give it time 
To learn its hmbs ; there is a hand that guides." 

In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails, 80 

And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood, 

1 In France. This passage did not appear in the first editions, not, indeed, 
till 1850. It was doubtless incited by the revolution of 1848, when Louis 
Philippe was forced from the French throne and a republic established in 
place of a monarchy. " The poem," says Dawson, " is not improved as a 
work of art by the insertion." 

2 "This strong faith runs through all of Tennyson's poems. . . . This 
beautiful hope pervading all his writings is one of the secrets of the poet's 
popularity and influence." — Dawson. 



CONCLUSION.] A MEDLEY. ^39 

Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks,i 

Among six boys, head under head, and look'd 

No Httle hly-handed baronet he, 

A great, broad-shoulder'd, genial EngUshman, 

A lord of fat prize oxen and of sheep, 

A raiser of huge melons and of pine,^ 

A patron of some thirty charities, 

A pamphleteer on guano and on grain, 

A quarter-sessions chairman,— abler none ; 9° 

Fair-hair'd, and redder than a windy morn ; 

Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those 

That stood the nearest ; now address'd to speech ; 

Who spoke few words and pithy, such as clos'd^ 

Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year 

To foUow. A shout rose again, and made 

The long line of the approaching rookery ^ swerve 

From the elms, and shook the branches^ of the deer 

From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and rang 

Beyond the bourn of sunset,— oh, a shout 

More joyful than the city roar that hails 

Premier or king! Why should not these great Su'S 

Give up their parks some dozen times a year 

To let the people breathe? ^ So thrice they cried, 

I likewise, and in groups they stream'd away. 

But we went back to the abbey, and sat on, 

1 The holm, or evergreen, oak. 

2 Pineapples raised in hothouses. 

3 Inclosed; embraced. . , tv.*.w 
. Means h^e the rooks themselves rather than the. at.dmg place. They 

were returning at the end of the day. 

°.Se"e"Note , p. 82. "The time thought little of them neither did 

to ask, 'Why should not these great Su., etc. bTOi to 



100 



140 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. [conclusion. 

So much the gathering darkness charm'd. We sat 

But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, 

Perchance upon the future man. The walls 

Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd, and owls whoop'd, no 

And gradually the powers of the night, 

That range above the region of the wind, 

Deepening the courts of twilight, broke them up 

Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds, 

Beyond all thought, into the heaven of heavens. 

Last little Lilia, rising quietly, 
Disrob'd the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph 
From those rich silks, and home well pleas'd we went. 



A STUDY OF THE 

TECHNIQUE OF TENNYSON'S 
VERSE 

There are two distinct types of blank verse, dramatic and epic. 
Dramatic blank verse reached its culmination in Shakespeare's work. 
Epic blank verse has thus far attained its highest development in the 
works of Milton and Tennyson. While these two poets used the same 
vehicle for the expression of their thoughts, each colored the medium 
of expression until it became peculiarly his own. The Miltonic verse, 
while unrivaled in its way, does not readily yield its subtlest charms to 
the beginner; and teachers of literature have almost uniformly found 
that the easiest and most effective approach to all that is best in 
poetry, is through the open door of Tennyson's matchless verse. 
"For perfect grace, and an airy lightsomeness of movement; for 
melody and harmony, in all their various forms, from the most 
easily appreciable up to the most subtle; for organic variety of meas- 
ures, . . . and for almost every other element of poetic expression, 
the young student can read no poems superior to the Idylls of the 
King — none that will better serve to tune his feelings to organic 
poetic form" (Corson). This statement applies equally well to the 
Princess. Indeed, for sheer splendor of technique, there are passages 
in the Princess finer than anything in the Idylls. 

No one can, in the truest sense, appreciate any work of art without 
knowing something of the technique of that art. An experience 
covering twenty-seven years as a teacher of hterature has convinced 
me that the teacher can do nothing better for his students than to 
give them at least an elementary knowledge of some of the instrumen- 
talities by means of which the poet produces his effects. This con- 
viction has led me to prepare the following brief discussion of the 
two coefficients of expression on the form side of poetry. After the 

141 



142 TECHNIQUE OF TENNYSON'S VERSE. 

student has mastered this outline and has read the illustrative selec- 
tions aloud again and again, let him search the poem through for other 
examples for each of the points illustrated. 

The first of the two coefi&cients of expression referred to in the 
foregoing is rhythm. The following paragraphs from Lanier dis- 
criminate admirably between primary and secondary rhythm: 

"If equal or simply proportionate intervals of time be marked off 
to any of our senses by any recurrent series of similar events, we may 
be said to perceive a primary rhythm through that sense. Thus, if a 
rose be waved before the eyes once every second, we may be said to 
have a perception of primary rhythm through the sense of sight; if 
the rose be held under the nostrils once every second, we would have 
primary rhythm marked off for the sense of smell; if it should be 
pressed upon the forehead once every second, we would perceive 
primary rhythm by the sense of touch; if it should be crushed on the 
tongue every second, we would perceive primary rhythm by the 
sense of taste; and, if it should be whirred swiftly past the ear every 
second, we would perceive primary rhythm by the sense of hearing. 

"But this primary rhythm may be considered a sort of primordial 
material, which the rhythmic sense of man always tends to mold into 
a more definite, more strongly marked, and more complex form that 
may well be called secondary rhythm. 

"The tendency to arrange any primary units of rhythm into groups, 
or secondary units of rhythm, is so strong in ordinary persons, that 
the imagination will even effect such a grouping when the sounds 
themselves do not present means for it." 

There are four basic secondary rhythmic groups, or feet: the iamb, 
a foot of two syllables with the accent on the second syllable, rep- 
resented thus (x a) (Latham's Notation) ; the trochee, two syllables, 
accent on first syllable (a x) ; the anapest, three syllables, accent on 
last (x x a) ; the dactyl, three syllables, accent on first (a x x). These 
are called basic rhythmic groups because the poet must select one of 
these as the basic measure for his song. He may, however, for the 
purpose of special enforcement, insert, in place of any basic foot, any 
one of the other three measures; or, he may secure enforcement or 
organic variation by the use of any one of the special or enforcement 
rhythmic units. The following are the special rhythmic groups: the 
P3nrrhic, two syllables, neither accented (x x); the spondee, two 



TECHNIQUE OF TENNYSON'S VERSE. 



143 



Prologue, line 239 



syllables, both accented (a a); the amphibrach, three syllables, 
second accented (x a x); the amphimacer, three syllables, first and 
last accented (a x a); and the choriambus, or the trochee-iamb, four 
syllables, accent on first and fourth (a x x a). 

Examples of organic variations in rhythm; or of variation for the 
purpose of securing aesthetic enforcement. In each of the following 
the pyrrhic (x x) is introduced effectively: 

aaxxxaxxx a 
Like ]innets in the pauses of the wind. 

a XX axxxxaxx 
Close at the boundary of the Hberties; 

axxa X axxxa 
Rapt in her song, and csLieless of the snare. 

xaxxxa a axa 
And eddied into suns, that wheeHng cast 
The planets; 

axxa a axxxxa 
Fresh as the first beam gMttering on a sail, 

xa xaxaxxx a 
And dark and true and ttnder is the North. 

a a xxxa axxa 

They mark'd it with the red cross to the fall, 

x axxx ax a xa 
With music in the growing breeze of time. 



Canto 



Canto 



I, line 170 
I, line 218 



Canto II, line 103 

Canto IV, line 

Canto IV, line 

Canto VI, fine 

Canto VI, line 



26 



80 



25 



40 



In the following the special enforcement is secured mainly by the 



use of the spondee (a a) : 
axxa a axx a We rode 
Many a long league back to the North. 

a ax xxaaa xa 
Hangs silent; but prepare: / speak; it falls. 

a axa XX a. x ax a 
Star-sisters answering under crescent brows; 
xax a a axxxa 
Beyond the tldck-leaved plata,ns of the vale. 

xa X ax a aaj 

"Alas, your Highness breathes full east, 



Canto 
Canto 
Canto 



I, line 166 
II, Hne 206 
II, line 406 



Canto III, line 159 
x a 
I said, 

Canto III3 line 215 



144 TECHNIQUE OF TENNYSON'S VERSE. 

aaxa x a xaxa 

Huge women blowz'd with health, and wind, and rain, 

Canto IV, line 260 

aax XX axxx a 
Low voices, with the ministering hand, Canto VII, line 6 

In each of the following two the tripping efifect is secured by the 
use of the amphibrach (x a x) : 

X axaxaxaxx a 

Or seem'd to watch the dancing bubble, approach'd 
Melissa, Canto III, line 8 

axxxaxxaxxa x a 
Myriads of mwlets hurrying thro' the lawn, Canto VII, line 205 

Here the unusual foot is the amphimacer (a x a) : 
a X a a X a 
Sweet and low, sweet and low, Canto II, line 456 

aaxax ax ax a 
O Vashti, noble Vashti! Summoned out, Canto III, line 212 

axaxa xaxx axa 
Fly to her, and pipe, and woo her, and make her mine, 

Canto IV, line 97 

The choriambic swing of the voice is finely illustrated in the follow- 
ing Hnes: 

a xxaxax x xa 
Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate, Prologue, line 4 2 

(This fine line contains both a choriambus and an amphibrach.) 
a X x a 
Danced like a wisp. Prologue, line 64 

axxaxax ax a 
Set in a gleaming river's crescent curve. Canto I, line 169 

a XX a axxaxa 
Morn, in the white wake of the morning star. Canto III, line i 

a xxaxaa ax a 
Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks. Canto III, line 339 

a xxax axxx a 
Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth, Canto V, hne 41 

(Choriambus, amphibrach and anapest.) 



TECHNIQUE OF TENNYSON'S VERSE. 145 

axxaxax ax a 
Reels, as the golden autumn woodland reels Canto VII, line 336 

The second coefficient of expression is tone color. "The com- 
ponents of a musical sound are called partial tones; that one having 
the lowest rate of vibration is the fundamental tone, and the other 
partial tones are called harmonics or overtones. The vibration 
ratios of the partial tones composing any sound are expressed by all, 
or by a part, of the numbers in the series, i, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.; and the 
quality of any sound (the tone color) is due in part to the presence or 
absence of overtones as represented in this series, and in part to the 
greater or less intensity of those present as compared with the funda- 
mental tone, and with one another." 

Some words have tone colors that are inherently pleasing to the 
ear,— the long vowels and diphthongs, when suspended in a framework 
of the liquid consonants (1, m, n and r) are especially pleasing; some 
are merely lacking in the quahties that delight the ear; still others 
are harsh and dissonant. Tone color may be discussed under the fol- 
lowing heads: Melody, Harmony, and Assonance. 

Melody is secured through the choice of musical words, the placing 
of these so as to avoid harsh combinations, and the adjustment of 
the logical accents so that the rises and falls of the voice may result 
in a pleasing speech tune. The following are examples of unusually 
fine melody: 

My nurse would tell me of you; 
I babbled for you, as babies for the moon. 
Vague brightness; when a boy, you stoop'd to me 
From all high places, Hv'd in all fair lights. 
Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south 
And blown to inmost north ; at eve and dawn 
With 'Ida, Ida, Ida,' rang the woods; 
The leader wild swan in among the stars 
Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of glowworm light 
The mellow breaker murmur 'd 'Ida.' 

Canto IV, hnes 407-416 

She turn'd; she paus'd; 
She stoop'd; and out of languor leapt a cry; 



146 TECHNIQUE OF TENNYSON'S VERSE. 

Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks of death; 

And I believ'd that in the Hving worid 

My spirit clos'd with Ida's at the Hps; 

Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose 

Glowing all over noble shame; and all 

Her falser self slipt from her Hke a robe, 

And left her woman, loveher in her mood 

Than in her mold that other, when she came 

From barren deeps to conquer all with love; 

And down the streaming crystal dropt; and she 

Far-fleeted by the purple island sides. 

Naked, a double hght in air and wave, 

To meet her Graces, where they deck'd her out 

For worship without end. 

Canto VII, lines 139-154 

Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 
The woman's cause is man's; they rise or sink 
Together, dwarf'd or godlike, bond or free. 
For she that out of Lethe scales with man 
The shining steps of Nature, shares with man 
His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal, 
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands, — 
If she be small, slight-natur'd, miserable. 
How shaU men grow? 

Canto VII, lines 242-250 

Harmony is adaptation of sound to sense. Where the thought is 
beautiful harmony coincides with, and enriches the melody. Where 
the thought is repellent harmony takes precedence over melody, 
often producing harsh dissonance. In the following Unes melody 
and harmony coincide and each enforces the other: 

Then day droopt; the chapel bells 
Call'd us. We left the walks; we mixt with those 
Six hundred maidens clad in purest white. 
Before two streams of hght from wall to wall, 
While the great organ almost burst his pipes, 



TECHNIQUE OF TENNYSON'S VERSE. 147 

Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court 

A long melodious thunder to the sound 

Of solemn psalms and silver litanies, 

The work of Ida, to call down from heaven 

A blessing on her labors for the world. 

Canto II, lines 446-455 

In the following selection, harmony takes precedence over melody: 

And up we came to where the river slop'd 

To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks 

A breadth of thunder. 

Canto III, lines 273-275 

In the first lines of the next quotation, harmony displaces melody; 
but in the last two lines they are again coincident: 

And then we turn'd, we wound 
About the cliffs, the copses, out and in, 
Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names 
Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff. 
Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the sun 
Grew broader toward his death, and fell, and all 
The rosy heights came out above the lawns. 

Canto III, lines 341-347 

Assonance has four phases: initial assonance, or alliteration, 
interior assonance, final assonance or rime, and phonetic syzygy. 

Examples of initial assonance: 

They haled us to the Princess where she sat 
High in the //all. Canto IV, line 252 

A lidless ze'atcher of the public weal, Canto IV, fine 306 

My boyish dTesun. involv'd and (/azzled down 
And master'd, Canto IV, line 430 

Double alliteration: 

And here we lit on aunt Elizabeth, 

And £iha with the rest, Prologue, fine 96 



148 



TECHNIQUE OF TENNYSON'S VERSE. 



And roWd the shoulders in a rosy silk, 
As in some W3'stic waddle state I lay; 

Interior assonance: 

Laborious orient ivory, sphere in sphere, 
Enring'd a b/llowing fountain in the midst; 
In crystal currents of clear morning seas. 
Fight and fight well; strike and strike home. 



Prologue, line 103 
Canto VI, line 2 



Prologue, line 20 
Canto II, line 14 
Canto II, Hne 307 
Canto V, line 399 



Final assonance, or rime, need not be discussed here; but the stu- 
dent should notice carefully the few rime schemes exhibited in the 
songs. In some respects the most canorous rime scheme in the 
language is that employed in the bugle song. 

Phonetic syzygy is the juxtaposition of cognate sounds (v-f, d-t, 



etc.) 

So sweet a wice and mgue, fatal to men. 
She moan'd, a/olded wice; and up she sat, 
Wha^ were I nigher /his altho' we da.sh.'d 
FlsLitei'd and flus/erW, wins, tho' dsish'd with 
Jeath 



Canto IV, line 46 
Canto V, line 69 
Canto V, line 131 

Canto V, line 157 



In a sense the vowels are all cognates, and Tennyson makes an 
unusually fine use of initial vowel syzygies. 



That oxlike edge imturnable, owr Head, 

Or wnder arches of the marble bridge 

Hung, 

Orb'd in your isolation. 



Canto II, line 186 

Canto II, Hne 434 
Canto VI, line 153 



In many of these tone color enforcements cited, the effect is aug- 
mented by organic variation in rhythm. 

It would be useless here to attempt to make any analysis of the 
coefiScients of expression on the content side of Tennyson's poetry; 
because such an analysis would have to cover the whole range of rheto- 
ric. One thing, however, the student should be led to do, and that 
is to make a special study of Tennyson's phrases. In prose, especially 
in those forms of prose that appeal particularly to the intellect, the 
predications are all important; but in poetry, the ultimate appeal of 



TECHNIQUE OF TENNYSON'S VERSE. 149 

which is to the emotions, even though the appeal is through the 
intellect, the phrasal units are of first importance. In the matter of 
rich pictorial phrasing Tennyson has no equal. In fact, the critics 
in general are agreed that his work is over ornate. It should be 
added, though, that they rarely agree as to the phrases that offend. 
It has not infrequently happened that the phrase selected by one 
critic to illustrate decorative art carried to excess, is the very phrase 
chosen by another critic to ilhistrate the poet's phrasal power. The 
following are some of the finest bits of phrasing in the Princess: 

The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty Hme, Prologue, Hne 87 

In the green gleam of dewy-tassel'd trees. Canto I, line 93 

Set in a gleaming river's crescent curve. Canto I, line 169 

From four wing'd horses dark against the stars; Canto I, Une 208 

The fading pohtics of mortal Rome, Canto II, Hne 266 

Above the empurpled champaign, Canto III, line 104 

To assail this gray preeminence of man! Canto III, line 218 

The sandy footprint harden into stone. Canto III, line 254 

Tears from the depth of some divine despair Canto IV, line 22 

death in Hfe, the days that are no more. Canto IV, line 40 

The lily-shining child; Canto IV, line 268 

Long lanes of splendor Canto IV, line 457 

A Hsping of the innumerous leaf Canto V, line 13 

Lord of the ringing Hsts; Canto V, hne 491 

And over them the tremulous isles of light Canto VI, line 65 

Half-lapt in glowing gauze and golden brede. Canto VI, Hne 118 

And so thro' those dark gates across the wild Canto VII, hne 341 

For pure technique, that is, for mastery of rhythmic movement, 
for tone color enrichment, and for the connotations derived from 
splendid phrasings, the following is unsurpassed in our language, or 
in any language: 

Come down, maid, from yonder mountain height; 
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), 
In height and cold, the splendor of the hills? 
But cease to move so near the heavens, and cease 
To ghde, a sunbeam, by the blasted pine. 



I50 TECHNIQUE OF TENNYSON'S VERSE. 

To sit, a star, upon the sparkling spire; 
And come, for Love is of the valley, come, 
For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
And find him; by the happy threshold, he. 
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, 
Or red with spirted purple of the vats. 
Or foxUke in the vine; nor cares to walk 
With Death and Morning on the silver horns. 
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, 
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, 
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls 
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors. 
But follow; let the torrent dance thee down 
To find him in the valley; let the wild 
Lean-headed eagles yelp alone, and leave 
The monstrous ledges there to slope and spill 
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke. 
That like a broken purpose waste in air. 
So waste not thou, but come; for all the vales 
Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth 
Arise to thee; the children call, and I, 
Thy shepherd, pipe, and sweet is every sound, — 
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; — 
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, 
The moan of doves in immemorial elms. 
And murmuring of innumerable bees. 

Canto VII, lines 177-207 



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a significant and thorough body of illustration, which shall 
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AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



OUTLINES OF ANCIENT 
HISTORY 

By WILLIAM C. MOREY, Professor of History and 
Political Science, University of Rochester 

^1.50 



THIS course in ancient history, from the earliest times 
to Charlemagne, meets fully the requirements of the 
College Entrance Examination Board, and of the New 
York State Education Department. The same vital features 
w^hich have made the author's Greek History and Roman 
History so successful, have been retained in this book. The 
same topical method of treatment, the same arrangement by 
paragraphs, the same simple, direct style, and the same clear 
and graphic presentation, are among its chief characteristics. 
^ The book indicates the historical relations of »^he various 
countries to one another, and the contributions which each 
has made to the progress of mankind. Throughout the 
author has aimed to develop in the pupil's mind a scientific 
spirit, by emphasizing the continuity of history, and by making 
clear the relation of special facts to general movements, the 
relation of these general movements to the growth of the 
national character and institutions, and the relation of each 
nation's career to the general progress of mankind. 
^y The usual division of ancient history into Oriental, Greek, 
and Roman has been followed, and great care has been taken 
in each case to lay emphasis on those particular features which 
have distinguished one nation from another, and which have 
given it the peculiar place it holds in history. 
^ The important relation of geography to history has con- 
stantly been kept in view. More than twenty progressive 
maps are given to show the successive changes which took 
place in the development and decline of the different nations. 
Each chapter is followed by a synopsis for review, while at 
the end of the book there is a Hst of references for reading. 




LESSONS IN PHYSICAL 
GEOGRAPHY 

By CHARLES R. DRYER, M.A., F.G.S.A., Professor 
of Geography, Indiana State Normal School 

|l.20 



SIMPLICITY and accuracy constitute two of the chief 
merits of this text-book. Moreover, much of the gene- 
ralization, which is the bane of all text-boolcs, has been 
avoided. The physical features of the earth are grouped 
according to their causal relations and the functions which they 
perform in the world economy. The characteristics of each 
group are presented by means of a typical example, which is 
described in unusual detail. Many reaUstic exercises are in- 
troduced to direct the student how to study the thing itself, 
whenever practicable, or some experimental or pictorial repre- 
sentation of it. These exercises include both field and labora- 
tory work, and should be made fundamental rather than 
supplemental. 

^ The order of general topics is the Planet Earth, the Land, 
the Sea, the Atmosphere, and Life, and each topic is treated 
with such fullness that it enables the teacher who has not 
had a special course in geography to teach the subject in- 
telHgently. At intervals throughout the book there are in- 
troduced discussions of the consequences which follow the 
conditions described, and chapters upon Life, containing a full 
treatment of the controls exerted by geographical conditions 
upon plants, animals, and men. 

^ The book is eminently readable. The style is less formal 
and dogmatic than is usual in a scientific text-book, and 
approaches that which a teacher uses in conversation. The 
appendix contains directions for laboratory exercises, full in- 
formation in regard to the best material for the equipment of 
a geographical laboratory, and a reference list of the available 
Hterature upon the subject. The book is profusely illustrated. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



A NEW ASTRONOMY 

By DAVID TODD, M.A., Ph.D., Professor of Astron- 
omy and Navigation, and Director of the Observatory, 
Amherst College. 



ASTRONOMY is here presented as preeminently a 
science of observation. More of thinking than of 
memorizing is required in its study, and greater emphasis 
is laid on the physical than on the mathematical aspects of 
the science. As in physics and chemistry the fundamental 
principles are connected Vi^ith tangible, familiar objects, and 
the student is shown how he can readily make apparatus to 
illustrate them. 

^ In order to secure the fullest educational value astronomy 
is regarded, not as a mere sequence of isolated and imperfectly 
connected facts, but as an inter-related series of philosophic 
principles. The geometrical concept of the celestial sphere is 
strongly emphasized; also its relation to astronomical instru- 
ments. But even more important than geometry is the philo- 
sophical correlation of geometric systems. Ocean voyages 
being no longer uncommon, the author has given rudimental 
principles of navigation in which astronomy is concerned. 
^ The treatment of the planets is not sub-divided according 
to the planets themselves, as is usual, but according to special 
elements and features. The law of universal gravitation is 
unusually full, clear, and illuminating. The marvelous dis- 
coveries in recent years and the advance in methods of teach- 
ing are properly recognized, while such interesting subjects 
as- the astronomy of navigation, the observatory and its 
instruments, and the stars and the cosmogony receive particu- 
lar attention. 

^ The illustrations demand special mention; many of them 
are so ingeniously devised that they explain at a glance what 
many pages of description could not make clear. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



(i«i, 



BOTANY ALL THE YEAR 
ROUND 

By E. F. ANDREWS, High School, Washington, Ga. 



Edition with Flora . . . $1.50 



Edition without Flora . .$1.00 



t: 



^HIS book has been prepared with the view to encour- 
aging the study of botany in schools where it is now 
neglected for want of a method suited to their needs. 
It is intended especially for schools not having a highly 
organized system of instruction, and can be used without 
difficulty by teachers who have had no special training. For 
the most part the experiments described are very simple, and 
can be performed with homemade appliances within the reach 
of any school. While the treatment is distinctly practical and 
scientific, the language is simple and direct, and botanical 
terms are introduced only as required. 

^ The lessons are arranged according to the seasons, so that 
each subject will be taken up at just the time of the year when 
material for it is most easily obtainable. The leaf has been 
selected as the starting point, followed in turn by fruits, 
seeds and seedlings, roots and underground stems, buds and 
branches, and finally flowers. The chapter on ecology, the 
studies of a few typical cryptogams, the practical questions at 
the end of each topic, and the suggestions for field work at 
the close of each chapter, form vital features. 
^ The Flora, which has been prepared especially for ^se m 
connection with Andrews's Botany, gives descriptions of over 
1,200 species, covering the flowering plants, wild and culti- 
vated, which are most frequendy seen in the eastern half of 
the United States. Each plant is described so exacdy and 
fully as to enable the beginner to determine readily and 
accurately its genus and species. Because the Flora is brie^ 
it is easy to use, and does not discourage the young pupil with 
a muldtude and diversity of plants. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



DESCRIPTIVE 

CATALOGUE OF HIGH 

SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 

TEXT-BOOKS 

Published Complete and in Sections 



WE issue a Catalogue of High School and College Text- 
Books, which we have tried to make as valuable and 
as useful to teachers as possible. In this catalogue 
are set forth briefly and clearly the scope and leading charac- 
teristics of each of our best text-books. In most cases there 
are also given testimonials from well-known teachers, which 
have been selected quite as much for their descriptive qualities 
as for their value as commendations. 

^ For the convenience of teachers this Catalogue is also 
published in separate sections treating of the various branches of 
study. These pamphlets are entitled : English, Mathematics, 
History and Political Science, Science, Modern Languages, 
Ancient Languages, and Philosophy and Education. 
^ In addition we have a single pamphlet devoted to Newest 
Books in every subject. 

^ Teachers seeking the newest and best books for their 
classes are invited to send for our Complete High School and 
College Catalogue, or for such sections as may be of greatest 
interest. 

^ Copies of our price lists, or of special circulars, in which 
these books are described at greater length than the space 
limitations of the catalogue permit, will be mailed to any 
address on request. 

^ All correspondence should be addressed to the nearest 
of the following offices of the company : New York, Cincin- 
nati, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



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